Without Anesthesia
by Pawpels
Summary: Marinette Dupain-Cheng works as a field nurse for the French army during World War II, and Adrien Agreste winds up as her patient after a battle.
1. Ardent Repose

The hospital tent was abuzz with both the groans of the freshly wounded, and the chatter of the recovering. The battle had been declared a victory. With minimal casualties, and a great deal of ground won, even those injured in the events of the day felt a certain gaiety towards the outcome, and the nurses tended to them with an exuberant fervor that suggested that there would be no more losses today.

It was across this sea of rambunctious bodies that she spotted him—sitting alone in a cot about three rows away from where she worked, carefully disinfecting a shrapnel wound in a soldier's bicep. There was something almost angelic about the way he looked—far too perfect to be real—with his golden-blonde hair and peridot-green eyes. It certainly didn't help that the never-quite-shut tent flaps were perfectly parted to illuminate him with a soft, golden glow. She couldn't help but let her gaze linger, even as she attended to her patient. Of course, a solider this beautiful wasn't a common sight.

"Chloe will be on him in seconds," she thought, almost shaking her head, as she dipped a fresh cotton swab in antiseptic and tried her hardest to focus on the task at hand.

She was correct. Before she could even begin to bandage the wound, Chloe had sprung, nearly climbing into his lap in a confusing combination of flirting and medicinal malpractice. She gushed over him enthusiastically, clearly complimenting him for his bravery or perhaps his looks, before he anxiously extended his forearm for her to treat.

"Oh, is that all?" she seemed to say, shrugging off the injury with a laugh and a flick of the wrist. She was off and back again in seconds, hastily dabbing the wound and wrapping it in gauze. With a hug, and a quick peck on the cheek, she gave him her famous Helen of Troy smile, and bounded off towards the barracks—absolutely impressed with her own stellar healing ability.

Marinette sighed. She finished wrapping her own bandage, bid her patient adieu, and walked to where Chloe has just stood.  
"She's not a very good nurse, but she keeps the soldiers' spirits up when things get rough, so the hospital keeps her on payroll," Marinette stated matter-of-factly, as she began unwrapping what was already a sloppy bandaging job. "Or maybe they just can't fire her because her father's the general," she added.

"That's not very nice," the solider replied, scowling at what he assumed to be pettiness on the nurse's part, "She did a fine job—"

"She didn't remove the bullet."

He fell silent. In the storm of affection, neither of them had thought to properly examine the wound. Now, with the bandages off once again, it was obvious she was right. The affected area itself was small and thin, but much longer than it was wide—as though the bullet had scampered up his forearm before burying itself in his flesh about a quarter inch below the surface. No, bullet wasn't the right word. Whatever this was, it was tiny.

As she examined the wound, she took a moment to study him as well. True, he was just as breathtaking up close, even with the golden light that had formerly illuminated him so perfectly little more than a distraction for her left eye, but there was something more to him than what she had glimpsed before. There was a sadness to him. There was a sadness that enveloped his very being. No, that wasn't quite right. To call it a singular sadness would have been an understatement. This was something more. This was series of maladies of varying degrees of both severity and salience.

There are many reasons for a solider to feel down, even after a victory. The question simply became, "Which was it?"

As she rummaged through her kit, she did her best to start him talking.

"So…" she began, getting right to the heart of the matter, as she had learned to do, "why did you decide to become a solider?"

He was momentarily taken aback by the question.

"You don't have to answer," she said, finally finding her needle nose tweezers and sanitizing them, "but it's best to keep talking."

"Why?" he asked, just barely shying away from the tarnished beak of the tool.

She pursed her lips slightly. It was usually easier when they didn't ask.

"Because it helps with the pain," she said as plainly as she could.

"Don't you have any anesthesia?" he asked, worry now showing on his face.

"Not for something like this," she responded, almost begrudgingly. The hospital was always under budget. They had been under budget when she'd arrived, and they would be under budget when the war ended—if the war ended, she reminded herself. True anesthesia was practically a luxury, used only for major surgeries, and the occasional limb removal. The rule of thumb was if the solider could sit still enough to be operated on awake, they would be.

He looked at her almost pleadingly. It was then that she made her first realization about him: He was far too soft for this.

He was young, probably the same age as her, but that wasn't the half of it. Whether he'd been raised in the lap of luxury, or on a quiet family farm, she didn't know, but it was obvious that this person had never known discomfort before. She felt sorry for him. A battlefield was no place for a boy.

"I can put a numbing solution around the wound for you," she conceded, "but keep your eyes on me, and keep talking. Can you do that?"

He nodded, a tiny bit of relief replacing some of the fear in his eyes. She felt bad that she had nothing to offer him, but a placebo was a powerful drug. She dabbed the wound with antiseptic, and set to work finding the bullet.

"So, why did you enlist?" she asked, casually.

"I—" he hesitated, and then yelped with pain as his mind wandered towards his arm.

"Keep talking," she insisted.

"I…" A wave of sadness seemed to overtake him. His face fell, and his chest caved inward with remembrance. "I did it for my father."

"I'm sure he would be proud."

"No," he blurted out, "No, that's not what I meant. My father… my father… I don't care if he's proud of me. He never was… It's just that…"

In the midst of his confession, Marinette had locate the bullet and opened the tweezers in hopes of reaching around it, sending a new jolt of pain through him.

"Focus on your father," she reminded, trying to steady his already shaking arm.

"R-right." He was clearly straining, trying to be brave.

"Why don't you care if he's proud of you?" she asked, forming the only question she could think of.

"Because… because he's a traitor."

He let the question hang in the air, but she urged him to continue.

"He… I was always so proud of my father's company. He was a clothing designer… Some say the best in Paris. He used to brag that his designs were being worn in every country in Europe and the Americas. I never thought about how much that honor meant to him."

She almost had it. She'd gotten it with the tweezers, and then lost it on the way out. Luckily, he was still talking—completely unaware of her actions.

"When the war broke out, clothing sales to Germany stopped. Italy too, and then Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Austria. My father couldn't stand it. I think he was too self-centered to see what he was doing was wrong. I think he was too obsessed to care who he hurt."

Marinette removed the thing, and placed it on her tray without examining it. She then set her tweezers aside and took out the antiseptic once more.

"He struck up a deal with the Nazis. He'd provide them with hundreds of uniforms for their officers and officials, plus thousands of Francs for guns and tanks, and in exchange he'd be granted exclusive rights to sell in all Axis-occupied territory.

"I didn't find out about it until some kids at school confronted me. 'Hey, Agreste, does your daddy dress Hitler himself, or does he pay someone else to do that too?'"

She wrapped the bandage around his arm, not too tightly, but tight enough to stop the trickle of blood that had followed the bullet out.

"I enlisted less than a week later. I know it was naïve—"

That certainly was the word for him….

"But I felt like maybe if I joined up, I could undo just a little bit of what he did. I'm not really fighting for France, or against Hitler even… I guess I'm fighting against my father…"

"Oh," she finally commented, pinning the bandage in place.

"Yeah…" he laughed embarrassedly, realizing that he'd just been spilling his guts to a total stranger. "But…I guess that's… I guess that's why I don't care if he's proud of me. Because I'm not proud of him."

Marinette didn't know what to say. She'd asked that question a thousand times, and gotten only a smattering of unique responses. Every solider had a tale, certainly, but most were here for glory or adventure, or "to sock old Adolf in the jaw." She'd never been delivered of such a sob-story before, and quite frankly, she wasn't sure how to take it. She knew now why he looked so downtrodden, but she could sense there was more to it. Betrayal leaves behind anger. Hurt expresses itself as rage if it's allowed to fester. What she saw in him was sadness… sadness, and a bleak emptiness that indicated more than a desire for familial revenge.

"How does that feel?" she asked, noting that she had finished bandaging.

He laughed, overcome with the realization that he hadn't even been aware of half the procedure. A shy smile spread across his face, and her heart couldn't help but skip a beat.

"Much better," he replied, perhaps somewhat less than cognizant of the fresh sting the removal had caused.

"I'm glad," she smiled back sweetly. "Is there anything else you need looked at while I'm here?"

"No—Well, yes, actually… but it's not from the battle," he admitted sheepishly, "Is that okay?"

"Just show me where it is," she replied. Things were calming down in the tent. He'd probably be her last patient of the night anyways.

Without hesitation, he began unbuttoning his shirt. She tensed up momentarily, a bright blush actually spreading itself across her face, but she forced herself to relax. "Of course the wound's under his clothes," she thought, "If it weren't, I would have seen it already."

When he finished with the buttons, he made an attempt at getting the shirt off, but stiffened from the pain.

"It's okay. I can see it," she stopped him. She certainly had no trouble locating the ugly, purple mass against his otherwise unblemished skin. It didn't take more than a few seconds to figure out what it was: several inches of dark bruising surrounding what must have been a both a cut, and a second-degree burn—now mildly infected.

"How long has this been here?" she asked.

He replied, "A week… Maybe less…"

She tsked. Soldiers were always doing this. "There's nothing brave about not getting your injuries looked at," she would usually remind them, but she held her tongue until she'd heard the story.

"How?"

"I was on kitchen duty and Kubdel was just taking the skillet off. I… I must have run into him, I guess…" he admitted.

"That's not true."

"What? How do you know?"

"You've got splatter burns extending from the center. If you'd hit him, the grease would have splashed in the opposite direction."

He was momentarily stunned at what he could only assume to be Sherlockian brilliance.

"That…" she continued, "and Kubdel is infamous for taking off his glasses in the kitchen. You're not the first. He told you not to tell anyone, didn't he?"

"He…. I…. It made sense at the time…" he stuttered.

"Of course it did." She really didn't mean to chastise him, but this was all too common of an occurrence. She reminded herself that he was the victim in this situation. He was naïve, and green, and trusting, and she couldn't blame him for things that weren't entirely his fault. He had, after all, come clean about it now.

"Let me have a look at it."


	2. A Parish of Hellebores and Other Sins

"Let me have a look at it," Marinette said, leaning across his body to get a better view of the ugly, garish wound that spread itself across his lower abdomen like a wilting Hellebore.

"W-what are you doing?" he asked, stiffening. It had been months since he had physical contact this intimate, and lifetimes since he'd been in such an innocently compromising position.

"Hmm?" she asked, pretending not to hear the question as she gently probed the wound. It had an interesting quality to it—not quite wet, and not quite dry—although she was relieved to find it blanched quickly and normally. She suspected the presence of the cut may have created a full thickness burn, while the surrounding area suffered only superficially. "I'm assessing the severity of your injury," she answered, as though from a textbook. She straightened up and continued: "From what I can see, some parts of the wound are going to be healing faster than others. The bruising should clear up within a few days at most, and the outer layer of the burn should be gone by the end of the month. I'm not sure about the innermost ring, though…" she frowned, "We'll need to see how it responds to treatment to determine whether or not you'll need grafting."

"O-oh…" he responded, utterly embarrassed that he had dared to consider the act one of intimacy. The response had been more than thorough, but she had not answered the question he had asked. Maybe she hadn't understood his meaning.

"Sit tight," she said with a smile that seemed too bright to accurately fit the situation.

She retreated into the secondary room in the far left corner of the tent, carrying her medical tray of tools to sanitize. To call this room by any name would seem inaccurate, for, despite being hardly a room at all, it served an array of functions. To the doctors, it was the operating room, where the major surgeries took place. To the nurses, it was a respite, away from the groping, grasping, pleading arms of the sick and injured. To all the staff, though, it was a storage room for every odd and end the hospital kept in its stock. It was here, Marinette took her first deep breath, as she carefully set the tray down on one of the makeshift counters that lined the side nearest to the cots.

"Flustered is a good look for you, Mari," came a voice from behind. Marinette jumped, slamming down the tray with full force.

"Alya!" she began, in an attempt to reprimand her friend's intrusion.

"Cool down, will you? You're looking a little flushed," Alya laughed, "or is that just a blush I see?"

"Shhh!" Marinette hissed, somehow implying there was anyone nearby who would be even remotely interested in what the two nurses had to say.

Alya raised an eyebrow, but she played along. "So, who's the dreamboat?" she asked, a sly smile on her face.

"Ahhhh, uhhh…." Marinette stuttered, "Well, he had an arm injury and Chloe didn't treat it properly, so after I finished remove—"

"No, dummy, I mean what's his name?"

"His…."

Alya's arched brow rose higher and higher as her lips pursed and her arms crossed.

"I mean…."

She sank into her hip and narrowed her eyes. 'Typical Marinette.'

"You didn't ask his name, did you?" Alya asked, finally.

"It… It wasn't relevant!" Marinette responded defensively.

"Relevant to his injuries, or your love life?" she quipped.

"To his injuries, of course!" Marinette proclaimed, "I am a professional, after all."

"Sure you are," Alya laughed, relaxing out of her judgmental pose.

"I am, really!" She cried, turning her attention to her tray and picking up the thing with the tweezers once more. "See? Chloe bandaged his arm with this still inside. I got it out without issue."

Alya examined the thing closely, squinting at it from behind her spectacles. "Another buckshot round. I pulled two of those out of a soldier's leg about an hour ago."

"Just two?" Marinette asked, puzzled.

"Well, yeah," Alya responded. 'Had she been unclear?' "Is there a problem with that? It's one more than you've got…."

"I mean…" Marinette began, "I didn't have a chance to look at it when I first removed it. I didn't realize what it was…."

"And…?"

"And, I mean… There's only one… One and two…"

"One and two. I can count…."

"It's… buckshot."

"Yes, buck—Oh."

Alya realized it too.

"If it's buckshot… then where's the rest?"

They stood in silence for a minute, exploring their options from best to worst. Buckshot is a volatile creation—a round filled with tiny pellets that spew through the air like black pepper. 'Bam! Bam!' and the marks it leaves behind are small and stinging, if not deadly. A direct spray is enough to leave any target riddled with holes.

"Which solider was it you treated?" Marinette asked, finally.

"Row 5, cot 12," Alya replied. "I believe his name was—"

"Nino!"

"Hey, Knucklehead. Fancy meeting you here!" Nino laughed.  
"What are the odds, right?" Seeing his best friend snapped him out of his daze in an instant. Somehow, despite there being nearly a hundred soldiers in the tent, their cots had wound up being back to back.  
"What are the odds you'd end up with such a cookie?" Nino smirked, referencing both Marinette and Chloe.

"You… Oh, how long have you been watching?" he groaned. He was in for it now. Nino had to be the best wingman in the regiment, and that wasn't just because he had dreams of joining the air force. Nino liked to brag that he could hook a couple up in 10 minutes or less—provided the band could play it hot. Nightclubs were his playground, and pretty girls were his favorite type of doll.  
"Long enough, my friend," Nino started in, "Now, you just need to tell me which one of them you liked better—"

"Please don't say anything to her," he pleaded, cutting Nino off before he could hatch his grand plan.

"What? Are you nuts? Neither one of them?"

"Please."

"Fine." Nino pouted, mad that his services weren't currently required. He turned back around in his bed, and crossed his arms in a huff—checking in ever few seconds to make sure his displacement was being noted.

Marinette returned with a handful of antibacterial solutions and salves. She placed them back on the folding table she'd left at the head of the cot, and sat back down on her little stool. When she finally turned to face him, she found him oddly flushed.

She tried to question it, but her mouth wouldn't form words, so she set her lips and got to work, dipping a piece of cotton in iodine and leaning all the way across to the far side of his torso to dab at the outskirts of the wound.

A sharp hiss escaped his lips as the liquid hit his skin. She'd been careful to stay away from the center of the affected area, which was still very raw, but it seems she hadn't been careful enough. The iodine solution was alcohol based, and as such stung like a thousand burning needles to the skin. He was in pain once again.

"Talk to me," she commanded, but she had nothing to say.

He stuttered, grasping for topics of conversation—his mind clouded with discomfort. Finally, he managed to spit out, "W-why are you leaning so close?"

It took her a second to register what he was asking. It was barely a question at all, much less one that made sense.

"Well, so I can see better, of course," she replied, finally.

"No… I meant… I meant 'Why…' 'Wouldn't it be easier if you sat on the other side?' So that you don't have to lean across my legs, I mean…." He was blushing harder now.

"Oh." she said, dabbing on the last of the iodine. She sat up and turned away from him, realizing how odd her positioning must have seemed. She'd been working with soldiers of all shapes and sizes, with wounds of all sorts, in all manners of undress for month. Proximity had never been her concern before, and it had only grown less so as her time in the army went on. She supposed the real answer was that she simply hadn't noticed how intimate a position she had chosen.

"My supplies are on this side," she shrugged, forcing the color in her cheeks to return to normal before she turned back to him. "It's easier than moving them."

She picked up the Sulfanilamide powder and sprinkled an even coat over the central portion of the Hellebore—forcing herself to resume her favored lean, as though she hadn't just come to the realization of it's awkwardness.

"Are you done?" he asked, peering down at her through one eye. He was incredibly tense. His hands grasped at the blankets of the cot, balling into fists and holding on so tightly his knuckles were turning white. On his face he wore what appeared to be a prolonged wince, which he was only barely able to force himself out of in order to glance down at her to ask his question.

"Almost," she apologized, "Just one last thing."

As quickly as she could, she applied a generous coat of tannic acid to the entire area, wiped her hands on her apron, and stood up.

"Wait!" he cried, attempting to follow. Then, realizing the volume of his outburst he sat back down and nearly whispered, "Don't I need a bandage?"

"With that much iodine?" she laughed, and then realized he almost assuredly had no idea, "No, you don't need a bandage," she concluded. "Now let me just check another chart, and I'll be back to pick up my supplies in a second."

Marinette walked around to the cot at the back of his. Row 5, Cot 12, just as Alya had said. She picked up the chart and looked it over.

"And your name is…?" she began.

"The name's Nino, but you can call me whatever you like, sugar."

"Nino!" he hissed from the cot across.

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding," Nino chuckled, respecting his best friend's plea for non-intervention.

Marinette scanned the chart. Name, age, tent assignment, division—not to mention a quick report of his injuries, scrawled in Alya's impatient hand—there it was. His number: 50318.

She set the chart down and considered what she'd heard of the battle that day—The formation, the location, the plan of attack. As she mulled this over, she walked back around to the other cot and gathered her supplies. Both soldiers were still watching her, but she faked aloofness as she picked up the second chart to edit. She scanned it quickly and found what she was looking for: Number 50320, Adrien Agreste.


	3. Graphite Confessions

As the days passed, the hospital grew progressively quieter. Soldiers trickled out of the tent flaps like muddy water down the side of a cliff—the generals not giving them any more reprieve than was absolutely necessary. They left with wounds still open, and hasty treatment instructions intended to prevent the spread of infection. A select few would have the good sense to return in the evenings for fresh bandages, but the majority would relish the ugly scars that marked improperly tended skin, treating even the most easily fixed blemishes like well-earned trophies of their victories.

Marinette did her best to tend to all of the soldiers equally—taking on both her allotted area, and approximately 30% of Chloé's patients—but her thoughts continued to drift back to Private Agreste.

She no longer found him to be quite as puzzling as she had been before. She recalled his initially angelic appearance, nearly overshadowed by a deep sadness, and though of how beguiling he had seemed. At first, she had seen him as a challenge—a dark web of mystery that she needed to pick apart, in order to find the person underneath—but with the correlating buckshot wounds found on 50318, the mystery had been all but solved. Now all that was left was the delicate matter of breaching the question.

Marinette decided to do the responsible thing, and avoid Adrien at all costs. She went so far as attempting to send Chloé to change his bandages, but when she mentioned the routine for the abdominal wound, Chloé recoiled in disgust and silenced the idea with a dismissive wave. Sabrina was nice enough to assist the first night, diligently following Marinette's routine down to the letter, and working with a mousy silence that kept her lips pressed shut even in answer, but by the second night it was clear that she had already run herself ragged handling not only her, but Chloé's patients as well. Marinette didn't have the heart to ask her for another favor.

Alya, smart cookie that she was, had taken note of Marinette's avoidance of what ought to be her favorite patient, and had taken to avoiding Marinette herself.

"Hey Alya—"

"Nope."

"Can I ask a little favo—"

"Not right now."

"It will only take a sec—"

"I said I'm busy, Marinette! Go talk to him yourself!"

Alya had her friend's best interests in mind, of course, but she couldn't have known of Marinette's ulterior troubles. Finally, Marinette mustered up her courage, gathered her supplies, and approached him herself.

"Oh, hello!" he said, startled. Adrien had been somewhat preoccupied with his own recovery, and had not observed the lack of attention he'd been shown as compared to the other soldiers. He'd taken note of the redheaded nurse the other night, and the way her silent diligence did nothing to dull the pain of the iodine, but he was a newcomer to the hospital scene, and was oblivious to the change in Marinette's demeanor.

"Hello," she responded, avoiding his gaze. This, he noticed.

She set her supplies on the same table as before, and unwrapped his bandage in silence. The arm was healing nicely. The tiny cavity where the bullet had slept was scabbing over without any of the signs of infection. There was no fluid, no redness, his lymph nodes looked fine, and his temperature seemed perfectly normal—Oh, she was doing it again, wasn't she? She emerged from her automated stupor to find her the back of her wrist pressed to Adrien's forehead, face only inches from his. Yes, his temperature was perfectly fine, but his cheeks were very obviously discolored.

"Sorry…" she mumbled almost inaudibly, as the crimson blush passed from patient to nurse.

She put in the extra effort to move her supplies from the table to the bed, and clumsily slid her chair over to the side of his body where the wound resided. She wasn't interested in another misadventure in proximity. She didn't even have the forethought to preface the iodine with a simple warning, and he yelped as the liquid dripped outside of its intended area and made its way into the raw center of the wound.

"Sorry, sorry," she muttered again. She did her best to remove the excess, and continued the procedure with only minimally more attention than before. She was rushing, and he could tell. "Talk to me," had been her signature phrase upon first meeting, but tonight she'd barely spoken more than a word at a time—and none of them had been directed towards conversation.

Still, he held his tongue while she worked, anxiously hoping she would explain herself without prompting. But when, after the last coat of tannic acid had been applied, she'd yet to give any explanation to her actions, he decided to bring up the matter himself. She stood up quickly and prepared to leave, but he caught her by the wrist.

"Wait." He didn't even need to say it. She stopped in her tracks and turned to face him.

"Yes?" she asked with a false smile.

"Something's bothering you."

"You must be mistaken, sir. I'm perfectly fine," she stated, without hesitation.

He wasn't sure how to respond to this. He dropped her wrist and let her leave, still puzzled by her obvious lies. At this point, though, he had no one to discuss the situation with. Nino had been checked out yesterday, as, he suspected, he himself would have been, had the cast-iron wound not have been discovered. He lay back in his cot and took to examining the patchwork ceiling, his brow knit with unease. He did his best to focus his thoughts on rough needlework of the tent while his concerns about the young nurse flitted in and out of his consciousness. It wasn't an ideal way to pass the time, but at least this way his other worries remained buried one layer deeper in his subconscious, where they were less likely to surface.

At this point, Marinette didn't even understand why she was acting this way. This was a warzone, for goodness sake. She'd met men and boys who had been through every level of hell, and she'd listened patiently to their stories. She'd already unraveled one level of the soldier's sadness. She'd already caused him pain. She'd already watched his face fall as he spoke of his father's betrayal. She'd already poured stinging liquid on his open wounds. She'd already seen his heart break before her very eyes. Why did this feel so much worse?

She knew why, though. It was because this wound… this wound was far fresher, and far more terrifying than any of the others. This was a wound that would leave him tossing and turning in his bed for years to come This was a wound that would haunt him on the battlefield—leave him petrified of an encore he would most assuredly receive. This was a wound he would carry with him into every encounter he faced, hostile or otherwise. This was a wound he was far too young to have. It wasn't fair. It wasn't at all fair.

But she knew one other thing. She knew this wound needed to be examined, and—if possible—treated, before it scarred.

In the darkness of the corner room, she abandoned both her supplies, and her professional demeanor, before returning to his cot. Silently, she resumed her seat on the stool, and sat looking at him—grasping for a way to begin the conversation. It took him little more than a second to notice her presence, but when he did, he flinched. She could see fear overtake his entire body for a split second, and then it was gone. He relaxed out of it, and sat up to face her—asking, nearly pleading her to pretend she hadn't seen that.

"Is there a problem, ma'am?"

She breathed, the question still forming on her tongue. When her lungs had filled to capacity, it slipped out on the exhale:

"50319. What was his name?"

Adrien stared at her in stunned silence. How could she have known? What had tipped her off? Had Nino said something? Was she secretly a telepath? Had she read his mind, and unearthed the memories he had been trying so desperately to burry since the moment he'd received them?

In truth, Marinette had pieced together the situation herself. The matching buckshot wounds, the sadness she had seen, and the way he seemed so desperate to avoid the present. The numbering system for their regiment had been the final clue. "Five," he was a member of the fifth division, on the right flank. "Zero, three" he had been in the third row on the offensive. "Eighteen, nineteen, twenty." Private Nino had been the eighteenth man from the left. Adrien had been the twentieth. Who, then, had been the nineteenth?

"His name was Nathanaël," he said quietly.

"I'm so sorry…" she nearly whispered, letting the tension she'd been holding onto for the past two days burst like a pocket of air breaching the surface of the water, "I never knew him."

"Really?" he chuckled shyly. It was a nervous laugh, designed to make light of the situation, "He knew you."

She stared at him, not sure where to take the conversation.

"He…" he began, "He was an artist."

Tears began to well up in his eyes. He bit his lip in an attempt to steady himself, but it was obvious it wasn't working. She didn't know what to do. She didn't know how to comfort him, so she let him speak.

"He used to sit outside of the hospital tent every chance he got. He had sketches of almost everything in the camp—all hung up in his tent or tucked under his bed—but I could tell… I knew he liked sketching you the best. I think… I think he was in love with you."

This was too much. Marinette had known his answer would be heartbreaking—she had known whoever it was had been someone he knew, possibly quite well—but she had no way of predicting that she, herself, would have been involved.

"I think he was in love with you." How could she have known? How could she not have known? Why did these things always surface when it was too late? A solider, an artist, a young man… had been in love with her, and now he was dead.

She'd never hear it from his lips. There was nothing she could do to change the situation. Would it even have mattered? If she had known his of feelings, would she have reciprocated? Or would she have brushed him off the way she did the grabbing, sex-starved old men who haunted the hospital tents with fictitious ailments? There was a cold emptiness in her chest, as though her heart had filled with black bile. It was choking. She didn't know what to say. She had no encouraging words to offer him, no false comfort to ease his mind. She couldn't reassure him with talk of an afterlife, or promise him that at least his friend was free of pain and far removed from this hell. Here, there is no way to honor the dead without damning the living. She froze.

"A-are you alright?" he blurted out, snapping her out of her stupor.

"I—" What could she even say?

"I'm sorry…" he offered. This was wrong. He shouldn't be apologizing for this. She was supposed to be the nurse. She was supposed to be able to heal him.

"No," she finally sputtered, "You can't be sorry about this. It… It wasn't your fault."

"But… I upset you."

"No," she repeated, "This isn't about me. I'm so sorry. I wanted to help you… but I don't know how."

He took her hand in his, and looked her straight in the eye.

"I remembered him."

He absentmindedly rubbed his thumb up and down the back of her hand as he spoke. "I said his name. I pictured the way he looked when he drew." He looked down at her hand. "I haven't been able to do that. I just kept thinking about…"

He stopped. Marinette squeezed his hand tightly in hers. "How did he look when he drew?"

"He…" he sniffed, "He looked so peaceful. He was always lost in thought when he was creating. Not like he was on the battlefield… He was so scared—"

"What tools did he use?"

"His—his pencil. He had a set, I think, but he'd pick one and use it down to nothing. He was carrying it in his pocket when—" He choked.

"Did he keep all of his drawings?"

"No… He was always throwing them away or burning them in the fire. He never thought they were good enough… but the ones he liked he hung up—" He choked again.

"In his tent, and under his bed," she recalled, squeezing his hand even tighter.

"What will we do with them now?" he sobbed, finally breaking down. "What if they won't send them back to his family? What if his family won't keep them?" He leaned forward suddenly. His chest collapsed and his shoulders shook. Wet, hot tears streamed down his face and marred his features. When he'd spoken of his father, his eyes had been dry. He hadn't shed a single tear in the face of his injuries. But now he wept. The final layer of melancholy had been exposed, and the floodgates had opened. She held him close, and let it pour out of him.

After what seemed like an eternity, his shakes subsided, and the waterworks stopped. He sniffed, and dried his eyes. She could feel an apology in the air, but she wasn't about to allow it.

"It's alright," she soothed, "You're alright."

"Thank you," he said instead, pulling away from the embrace. He wiped his eyes again and indicated that it was time to sleep. She took the hint and stood up once more, this time expecting to be stopped. She was right.

"Before you go…." he added, eyes downcast, "He had a stool he liked to sit on—out the door, 1100, and about twenty paces. It's probably still there." His eyes flicked up to meet hers. "Someone should probably bring it inside before it rains."

She nodded in promise, despite the fact that she knew no rain would come. She exited the tent to find the little stool exactly where he had said. It was a three-legged, wooden, dwarf of a thing, but it had a sort of rustic charm. It was much shorter than the hospital's seats—clearly from another part of the camp—but she was sure she could find a use for it. She picked it up, and didn't stop until she was well within the safety of the nurse's private tent. She placed the tiny thing at the end of her bed, and set on it a simple flower vase fashioned from a bottle of medicine. In the vase, she placed a single pencil. It wasn't much of a memorial, but it was something. It was more than so many soldiers would ever receive, but so much less than he deserved.

That night, Marinette dreamed of bright, auburn hair, and a shy smile she had never noticed before.


	4. A Study in Patience and Spirit

The next morning, when she awoke, the solider was gone. On the stool next to his cot, though, Marinette found not one, but three tiny, crumpled pieces of paper, folded haphazardly into quarters. On each, she found an image of herself. On two she was tending to patients—wrapping bandages and examining cuts she remembered from weeks prior. On the third was a series of tiny portraits from all angles. The pictures seemed to be a study of expression—focused, passionate, caring, worried, even tired—but each and every one contained her signature nurse's smile, warm and comforting. There was a pleasantness to the images, as though the girl in the drawings took great pride in her work. Marinette wondered if this was really how she appeared, or if perhaps the artist had taken some liberties with her demeanor. Still, she was touched by the gesture. She carefully refolded each one and tucked them into the pockets of her apron, resolving to re-home them with the rest of her belongings when the workday ended.

The tent was almost empty now; only twenty or so patients remained. Of these, a majority would likely be released before the week was out—their injuries not fatal, but located inconveniently enough to make continued training more difficult. Another set, situated in the 'quarantine wing' on the far side of the tent, stayed behind due to illness. Caused by infection, or simple pathogens, this bunch was a familiar sight to the hospital. They were omnipresent—with or without a battle to predate their condition—and their coughs and moans never ceased to echo across the facilities.

The last group, though, was the one to which Marinette was currently assigned. These were the bittersweet cases. These were the honorable discharges, the permanently maimed, and the new veterans. These soldiers were the difference between a grazed forearm, and a phantom limb; the difference between open sores, and gangrene; the difference between a week of recovery, and a lifetime of disfigurement. These soldiers were going home, and not by choice.

"You can't do this to me!" one yelled, pushing away two nurses who were attempting to help him into a wheelchair. He tried to run, but made it less than two steps before he collapsed, catching himself on the cot next to his before he hit the ground. He froze in place—his muscles tense—a mix of fear and anger clouding his mind.

Within a second, Marinette was there to help him up. She guided him to a sitting position and knelt beside him. The other nurses took this as their cue to leave, and found new tasks. There were other patients who required their services, and they both knew Marinette was perfectly capable of handling matters on her own.

Marinette examined the solider. He had dark hair, and a tall, stocky physique that made him look older than he likely was. Really, it was only his sad, grey eyes that gave away his age. He'd likely been here less than a year, she concluded, if even that. In her professional opinion, he looked healthy, if not troubled… but she knew he was not being discharged without a reason.

"Are you excited to see your family?" she queried, skirting the issue.

"What's the point?" the solider asked, "The war isn't over. I told them I wasn't coming home until it was over."

"You did your part. You served your country," she consoled, "I'm sure they'll be proud."

"No, I didn't." He was shaking. The spasms ran up and down his arms, from his drooping shoulders to his clenched fists. "I barely made it ten minutes into my first battle before they got me. I took ten steps before I fell." He rolled up his left pants leg, revealing an ugly maroon scar—still wet in some places, and scabbed over in others—fit to rival any she'd seen. Judging by the size, depth, and the existence of what appeared to be powder burns, Marinette inferred that the wound itself must have been caused by a bullet, though she couldn't be sure as to what type or size. The round had likely pierced his kneecap, shattering the patella, before doing an indeterminate amount of damage to the ligaments behind it. Even if it healed cleanly—and she suspected, in time, that it would—he would never walk on it again. If he was lucky, and had the money to pay a good doctor, he might come out of it with just a limp, but that was purely up to chance and circumstance.

"I was on the front line," he continued, "I got trampled. Everyone must have assumed I'd died. They didn't even look down as the walked over me." He paused, indicating his mangled lower leg—twisted far beyond what any field doctor could properly set. "I don't blame them, though. I would have thought I'd died too."

Marinette stood up and sat beside him, wrapping her arm around him in a casual gesture of support.

"I… I wish I had died."

"No you don't."  
"Y-yes I do," he insisted. "I bragged _so_ much about joining up. I was an athlete back home, and everyone knew it. I told all my friends I was going to sock old Adolph myself. Right in the jaw. There was a girl… she told me I wouldn't make it a year. I bet her 300 Francs—a full month's salary—I could make it twice that long. I told her that when we won the war, I'd buy her a ring, and she'd have to accept it… but I didn't even make it four months. Even if I spent every penny I earned, it wouldn't suit her. What would she want with a cripple like me, anyways?"

"Don't say that!" Marinette interrupted, "I'm sure she's back home waiting for you right now!"

At this, he smiled. It was the first time she'd seen him smile that day, and she took it as a good sign.

"You don't know Alix," he chuckled, "There's no way she's waiting for anyone. I don't know what she's doing, or where she is, but I'm sure that's not it. She's got too much spirit."

At that moment, Alya slipped through the tent flaps.

"The transport vehicle is leaving soon. Any soldiers returning to Vincennes today need to be on it, or get left behind."

Marinette stood up. "Are you ready?" she asked. There wouldn't be another departure of this sort for at least a week, but she did her best to indicate that if he wasn't, he genuinely _could_ stay behind.

"Y-yeah…" he said, taking her hand, and letting her help him into the wheelchair. She pushed him out of the tent and across the way to where the truck stood waiting. Just before he was lifted into it by two other soldiers, he turned to her.

"You know…" he said, "You were wrong about Alix… She's not going to be at home, waiting for me…." He paused, considering his words. "But maybe this way, I can be there… waiting for her."

The canvas flaps of the truck swung shut behind him, and Marinette stood, almost at attention, until they had driven out of sight. As she wheeled the chair back into storage, she thought about this girl—Alix—who, like Marinette, didn't have it in her to sit by when there was work to be done.

Night brought with it a string of drop-ins clamoring for fresh bandages and antiseptics. To her delight, Private Agreste was among these. She wasn't exactly surprised. He was inexperienced and acquiescent. If Alya had caught him before his departure and instructed him to return each night, he no doubt would have followed her orders to the letter, and Marinette was sure this had been the case.

Adrien tapped his foot impatiently as he waited in line behind the other men. There were three nurses assisting with wound dressing, so he was anxiously calculating his chances of receiving Marinette's attention. He'd even rehearsed his excuse—"Excuse me, Miss, but that nurse over there is the one who treated me before, and I'd prefer it if—" but thankfully for him, that wasn't necessary. When, at last, he reached the front of the line, and found Alya without a patron, she quickly excused herself to fetch something from the back room. Sabrina, likewise, took the hint and slowed her hand until Marinette had finished setting her patient's splint.

"Next!" Marinette called, utterly oblivious to the underhanded dealings of her coworkers.

Adrien approached sheepishly, and sat in the stool across from her station. Marinette immediately got to work. At this point, the buckshot wound was completely closed, with only a thick scab to indicate it's history. She decided to give it one more day, and rebadged it, post cleaning. Tomorrow she would to let it breathe.

He watched in silence as she worked, struggling to find a way to bring up his news. Returning patients rarely needed the extra layer of distraction that new wounds required, so Marinette had been working quietly all night. She had seen no reason to change her behavior now.

After the utter discomfort of the iodine, Adrien took the application of the sulfanilamide powder as his opening. Breaking the silence, he spoke:

"They cleaned out his tent."

"Who—" Marinette had barely posed the question before the answer came to her.

"Nathanaël," he echoed her thoughts, "When I got back to our tent, they'd already picked apart his belongings. The other soldiers did, I mean. I'm so sorry. I wanted you to have them, but everything's been stolen…."

Marinette felt for the papers in her apron pocket, wondering briefly if she had imagined them.

No. They were real. But then, if Adrien hadn't been the one to deliver them to her… who had? Private Nino? Alya? Another solider? She decided not to mention the drawings until she had figured out the answer.

"That's too bad. I would have loved to see them…" she commented, "Don't worry about it, though. It's alright."

"Are you sure?" he questioned, clearly disappointed in both the situation, and his inability to resolve it.

"Absolutely," Marinette assured. "I'm sure some of them will turn up eventually."

"Y-yeah…" he agreed, as she applied the last coat of tannic acid. He buttoned up his uniform and left without a closing word, still lost in the melancholia of the day's events. It's not that he had wanted the nurse to be upset by the news, but perhaps he had wanted to feel his dismay reflected in another person.

"Next!" She called out, and within seconds she was greeted with a new patient, a new challenge, and a new distraction from the new mystery she'd just unearthed.


	5. Paragon of Worry

When she awoke the next morning, Marinette found two pieces of paper on top of her medicine bag in the supply room. There was another piece on the cot closest to the exit, and several smaller pieces tucked into the rip in the canvas of the north side. At lunch, the cook slipped her a drawing with her meal, and after dinner, one of the soldiers dropped one at her feet as she examined his fractured jawbone. Even Chloé had brought a scrap her way, and though Marinette questioned her about it relentlessly, the most she could say was that a solider had given it to her, and they both felt Marinette ought to have it.

"You ought to have it," she heard Sabrina repeat on Tuesday, and Alya repeat on Thursday. Private Nino had been exceptional in his gift of six sketches, quickly snatched up before the works were scattered throughout the camp, but even he left no more explanation than anyone else. "You should be the one to keep these," he said, without a backward glance.

At this point, Marinette didn't know what to do. She'd smoothed out each one and looked it over; she'd pinned the ones she liked best above her bed, and carefully stashed the rest in a spare manila envelope; she'd even held a few of them over a flame to check for secret writing, but there was none to be found. It wasn't that she wasn't grateful to receive the fallen soldier's life's work—she was honored—but the whole situation left her confused. There was no apparent instigator to the deliveries. There was no central person to whom each messenger had some connection. She hadn't even known all of them herself, and yet, each of them knew enough to reunite the drawing with its likeness. It was baffling.

After the second gift had arrived, Marinette had resolved to discuss the situation with Private Agreste. Perhaps he had been false about the missing sketches. Perhaps he had mentioned them being stolen in an attempt to pleasantly surprise her when, in fact, he had them all to send. Or, perhaps he had been able to track a number of them down, and was personally asking that each be sent her way. Both options seemed fairly plausible. She was prepared to confront him about it that night when it came time to dress the soldiers' wounds… but he never came.

He didn't come the next night either, nor the night after that. She told herself not to worry about it, but she still asked Alya if she knew.

"Sorry, Marrinette, but they don't tell me anything they don't tell you…" and she hadn't heard any rumors either.

By Friday, she'd even gone so far as to ask Chloé for help.

"Can't you ask your father? The general's sure to know!" but Chloé wouldn't hear anything of it.

"Even if I asked him, I wouldn't tell you," she sneered, and Marinette was left in the dark again.

She hated this. She HATED this. It wasn't that she'd been handed everything all her life, but Marinette was smart. She'd always been able to figure it out. When she saw a wound, she could piece together the cause, the complications, and the treatment long before there was time for explanation. When she met a person, she could infer their history, motivation, and mental state within minutes. Now, she had nothing. No clues, no leads, and not one, but two mysteries plaguing her brain.

"Excuse me, Ma'am, but do you have a minute for an interview?"

The man who entered the tent was slightly below average height, with tan skin and dark chocolate eyes that always seemed to be searching for something. He wore his hair slicked back under a cap, and in his hand he held a pad of paper with a pencil half-shoved through the spiral binding.

Marinette looked up from the pile of laundry she was folding. She hadn't anything better to do, she supposed.

"Great!" the man smiled, oddly relieved. He took a seat on the cot closest to her, and then asked, "May I sit here?"

"Go ahead," she responded, although the request had been retroactive, and the response unnecessary.

"Right, let me introduce myself," he beamed, "My name is Theo Barbot. I'm a journalist with _Paris-Soir_ , here to cover our the troops."

"If that's the case," Marinette chuckled, "you ought to ask the troops."

"Oh! I'm sorry," Theo backtracked, "I'm not familiar with the terminology."

"You've never been a solider?" Marinette questioned. Avoiding conscription was not the easiest thing to do these days, especially with a public occupation like "journalist" to keep one out of hiding.

"Weak lungs," he smiled, shyly. "They didn't want a soldier who'd break down coughing in the middle of a battle."

She nodded. It didn't seem like a lie. She'd sent several asthmatics home the first week of training after it was discovered that they couldn't meet the physical requirements for enlistment.

"I used to be an sculptor, but I went in to journalism to help my country. I was very passionate about my craft, but I thought if I couldn't be a solider I should find some other way to assist. Maybe when the war ends, I'll return to my studio."

Another artist.

"But enough about me!" He realized the conversation had strayed. He had tried his best to be professional, but it seemed Marinette had that effect on people. He couldn't help but open up to her.

He flipped through his notebook, to find his list of questions. He began, "May I please have your name?"

"Marinette Dupain-Cheng," she said casually. Of course, the hyphen raised an eyebrow.

"Cheng?" he asked.

"My mother's maiden name," she said as nonchalantly as she could. She knew what was coming.

"She's not a Jap, is she?"

Marinette sighed. When Japan had first signed the Anti-Cominter Pact with Germany, no one had thought anything of it. Even when Japan had declared war on China, the average person hadn't taken note. It wasn't until Germany began its own conquest, hundreds of thousands of meters away, that Japan had been drawn into the equation. "Rome, Berlin… Tokyo?" the headlines had read.

At first, Marinette hadn't really considered the situation. True, she had been worried about her mother's relatives back east—she'd even helped write letters to her cousins in the motherland—but Japan was not a part of her heritage, and even China felt like another world to a young woman who had never even left France.

Her neighbors didn't feel that way. There'd been whispers up and down the streets for weeks. She could never be sure if the discussions were positive or negative, or even if they were directed at her, but she knew the sentiment existed.

"Hey, Marinette," a child had questioned, a finger to her lips, "Are you spying for the Mikado?"

"If Japan becomes our enemy, are you going to go home?"

"You're not a _traitor,_ are you?"

It wasn't consistent, but it was shocking enough when did occur to strike a nerve. It had gotten to the point where her mother, the kind and soft-spoken Sabine, had taken to working in the back of the bakery, only dealing with customers she already knew personally. She had claimed she simply preferred to handle the pastries herself, but Marinette knew she was worried about the business, and the way the ignorant masses might misinterpret her appearance and her alignment.

"No," Marinette answered, forcing a smile, "My mother is Chinese. They're on our side."

The reporter pursed his lips and nodded, evidentially unaware of the offensive nature of his question.

"So, what drew you to nursing?" he asked.

Marinette considered this. It had always seemed so obvious. Between a string of relatives dropping tidbits of traditional Chinese medicinal knowledge like pearls from a broken necklace, and her notably steady hands—grown strong from working in her parent's bakery—the medical field had simply felt right. She didn't want to mention that she had been eager to leave the city, where people knew her mother, and her heritage. She didn't want to admit that she liked the way she blended in with the rest of the nurses here—her Chinese features less than obvious to the untrained eye. She didn't want to admit that she took pride in her ability to prove false those in her community who considered her a potential menace.

"I've always wanted to help other people," she replied frankly.

"Interesting, interesting," he repeated, scribbling down her words as though she had said something very profound.

"How do you feel about the war?" he continued, not looking up. "How long do you expect it to last?"

"I think we're fighting for the right reasons. I think history will say that," she stated matter-of-factly, "Hopefully, the war will be over in time for Christmas. I'd like to see my family again."

"That long?" Theo asked. He certainly wasn't familiar with the terminology.

"That's what we always say," she laughed, "All throughout history: 'The war will be over by Christmas,'" she explained, "but it never is. The fighting seems as though it's only just started, but we've been at war for over eight months now, and we're not winning."

This came as a shock to the reporter. "But the other soldiers told me they'd just had a victory!"

"We're a small regiment, and that was a small battle," she admitted, sadly, "We're not the frontlines by any means, and our skirmishes won't decide the war. We were able to push back the German advance this week—in this tiny corner of the country—but other places they're winning." She stared past him, not watching his face as she spoke. "The generals are trying to fight the Great War again, but they can't do it. This is a new age, and the Nazis are a new threat. They can't repeat history, and they're sending our best men out to die trying."

Finally, she focused back on him, and saw his expression for the first time. He was horrified. The other soldiers, they were confident, assured, and jubilant in the wake of recent success. This nurse held a message of warning that couldn't even be mistaken for pessimism. He feared the truth in her words, and stalled as he struggled to grapple with them.

"I-I'm sorry…" she said, realizing her mistake. She'd spent weeks, months even, holding her tongue. She knew she was a paragon of safe-haven to the men. She existed to heal their wounds and ease their suffering. She listened to their stories, and lauded their accomplishments. She could not be the one to shake their faith.

"Please, _please,_ " she begged, "Please don't publish that."

He looked down at his notepad, bereft of any indication of what she'd just said, and nodded.

"Can I at least have a closing statement?" he asked, "Something to quote for the article."

"Of course," she breathed, relief flooding her veins, "I want the people at home to know how brave our solders are. I want them to know what they're fighting for is worthwhile, and that we'll never forget their sacrifices. And…" and she paused, "and if they can donate, they should…. The hospital could use more supplies."  
At this, the reporter gave a toothy grin, and stood up, extending his arm for a firm handshake.

"I've got a few more camps to visit before I can start writing, so please look for the article around the last week of June," he said, releasing his grip.

"Of course," she replied. "I wouldn't miss it."

As soon as he'd passed out of sight, Marinette returned to her laundry. She'd hoped the busy-work would keep her mind occupied for at least a short time, but the monotony of the task offered her more than ample time to think. Her thoughts raced wildly between Private Agreste and the mysterious drawings—two enigmas she could not solve—as she did her best to quell the gnawing in the pit of her stomach. She struggled immensely to silence the words she had just let slip from her tongue, but they ricocheted around in her mind like bullets from a gun. It was so easy to get wrapped up in the drama of the hospital each day that sometimes she forgot exactly how big the war really was. She could set a thousand bones, and stitch a thousand cuts, but it wouldn't alter fate. She could clean a thousand scrapes, and remove a thousand pieces of shrapnel, but it wouldn't make a difference. She could mend the wounds of every solider in the camp, with her brightest smile plastered to her face, but that wouldn't change the fact that France was losing, and there was nothing she could do about it.


	6. A Rampart Spans the Aperture

At 1800 hours, a solider burst through the flaps of the tent. All around, the nurses looked up, startled by the sudden movement. It was just barely post suppertime, and the first wave of evening patients had not yet trickled in, so they had all been focused on more idle tasks when the interruption came.

"A group of scouts encountered the enemy," he called out. "Five casualties: Two dead, three injured. Where are the doctors?"

"Doctor Haprèle is making a supply run to town tonight, and Doctor Ramier is recovering from Avian Influenza in his tent," Alya piped up.

"What about the others?" he asked.

Everyone exchanged an uneasy glance. They bit their lips and looked from one person to the next, asking who would be the barer of bad news.

"There are no other doctors, sir," Mylène responded, stepping out from behind the curtain that separated the quarantine ward from the rest of the hospital.

The solider threw his gaze from one person to the next, almost begging for a better answer. He looked trapped, as though cornered by some invisible beast. It was very likely that he was told to retrieve a doctor and deliver him to the secondary camp as quickly as possible. Waiting for one, tracking one down, or returning empty handed would be a waste of precious time, and had not been considered an option—yet now it seemed as though he had no alternative.

"Marinette could do it," Alya interjected into his thought process.

Relief washed over him like a wave as the color returned to his cheeks. He scanned frantically for this "Marinette," and latched onto her with just a bit of prompting.

"Right. Please pack a bag and meet me out front in no more than five minutes, Miss Marinette." He gave a quick salute and then exited out the way he had come.

" _Alya_ ," Marinette had hissed, the moment her name had been uttered, but she understood immediately that her friend's intentions were altruistic. Marinette had assisted with countless surgeries of even the most delicate nature, and although she was not old enough to have obtained a proper medical degree, she had learned more than enough first-hand to be useful now—provided the soldiers' wounds weren't too complex.

She had no idea what sorts of injuries the patients there would present with, as the solider had disappeared before she could be given any further information, so she packed a bag with as many of the necessities as she could recall, and rushed out to the waiting transport vehicle.

They arrived at the second camp in little more than an hour. It was a small, makeshift establishment, with few structures over four feet tall. The majority of the camp consisted of sleeping tents, personal fires, and gear haphazardly strewn across the dusty ground.

Marinette was lead first to the expedition leader's tent—tall, and with a sturdy, if not impermanent, feel to it—where she was given the warmest welcome, briefed on the situation, and introduced to the two patients who were still able to stand. The first was a man named Otis—fondly nicknamed "Growler" by the rest of the company—who had clearly been through the Great War, and returned for seconds. He extended his arm quickly to show that he had already taken the liberty of removing the bullet… with his own fingers. Judging by the scars that decorated his body, this was not the first time he'd done such a thing. Still, Marinette insisted on sanitizing the wound before setting him loose. He grumbled that this "really wasn't necessary," but didn't impede her work.

The second man gave a sheepish grin and drew aside a bundle of rags to reveal a bloodied ear, nearly blown clean off. It was far beyond aesthetic repair, but didn't appear to be causing the man much pain. Marinette snapped her fingers twice and discovered the eardrum to be perfectly functional, so she simply sanitized it, wrapped it in gauze, and gave careful instructions to return in the morning for fresh bandages. He nodded in compliance, and left to tell his tale to the other soldiers. "The most horrific wound she'd ever seen," he'd say, "But I was as calm as they come." Marinette would never tell the man that desensitized nerves in that area had created a wound far gorier than it was painful. She preferred to let them gloat.

Her first two cases now departed, Marinette was lead to a second, slightly shorter, but still fairly spacious tent with three small cots inside. On the furthest to the right, she saw him—the face she'd been searching for the full week past—Private Agreste.

When he saw her, he sat straight up and forced a smile. The word "forced" isn't in any way to comment on the insincerity of the smile, but rather to note how much effort it took to craft the expression on his face. What really appeared was closer to a grimace, created from the pure elation of seeing his favorite nurse, combined with an overwhelming bodily pain, which had been tormenting him for hours before her arrival.

"Where is it?" she asked, getting straight to the point.

He gestured to his collarbone with a laugh that quickly turned into a groan.

It certainly was a lovely little wound, if ever she'd seen one. The bullet had nestled itself into the crevices of his right clavicle—indenting the bone, and tearing away the skin around it in a dirty, lopsided circle of bruises and damaged tissue. As horrible as it appeared, though, the placement was incredible. A few millimeters lower, and she'd be looking at a punctured lung. A few millimeters to the left, and he could have lost mobility in his shoulder. A few millimeters to the right—she didn't want to consider it—but a few millimeters to the right, she'd be looking at a shattered trachea. Actually, she wouldn't be looking at anything. "Five casualties: _Three_ dead, two injured." She didn't want to think about that. This present situation was more than enough.

"I need to examine the wound," she said calmly, pushing the thought from her mind. "Will you be okay while I do that?"

"S-sure…" he tried to say convincingly. She wasn't convinced. She could see his knuckles turning white as he gripped one edge of the cot with all his strength—grubby nails stabbing helplessly into the opposite palm, finding nothing else to grab onto for support.

"Hold my hand," she said, kneeling next to him and extending her arm for him to take.

He looked at it hesitantly for a split second, and then clutched onto it with all his strength. There was something soothing about the gesture. He could feel her pulse beating steadily despite the panic he felt welling up inside of him. For a moment, he felt almost calm, as though the fear was flowing out of him and being replaced only by her serene confidence. It was a sense of safety that he hadn't known in a long time.

She took a moment to adjust to the pressure, and then got to work one-handed. Gingerly, she excavated the affected area, moving aside bits of dead skin and brushing off dirt. Thought it had been largely covered upon first inspection, she was able to determine that the wound itself was fairly shallow, and the bullet had a clear path for removal. The only complication was that the chunk of metal was likely partially imbedded in the bone, which could make her job exponentially more difficult if it refused to come quietly. Still, she hoped it wouldn't be too daunting a task.

She released his hand and rummaged through her medical bag for the same bottle of antiseptic and pair of tweezers that had treated him the day they had met. He responded to the loss of support by grabbing hold of his own arm and squeezing as hard as he could. When she applied the antiseptic, the stinging sensation caused him to grip so tightly, she was certain he would rupture a blood vessel, although he did not cry out. He merely whimpered as he shook.

"You'll hurt yourself if you keep doing that," she remarked, pausing in her work—tweezers poised at the edge of the crater. She was right. By this point, he'd managed to dig in his nails far enough to draw blood.

"Sorry… sorry…" he quavered, lowering his hand. It came to rest at his side, but his nerves were no less on edge, and he did not cease his shaking. In fact, as Marinette first caught hold of the bullet, he yelped, raising his arm, as though to swat away the cause of his suffering. It was only through sheer force of will that he managed to halt before striking.

"Sorry! Sorry!" he spluttered, tears finally welling up in his eyes. "I… I just…" Marinette did not pause in her work. The sooner she was finished, the sooner he would be free of this torment. "I'm sorry but…" He reached up to her pleadingly: "Could I hold your hand again?"

She felt a pang of guilt at the request, but gave only a small smile as she kept on: "I'm sorry, but I need both hands for this." In this instance, the loss of a working arm meant a loss of precision on her part. As much as she knew he needed the support, she simply didn't have a limb to spare.

"Please."

Finally, she paused in her toil, and looked down at him. He was a pathetic sight, truly. His eyes were red and puffy with fresh tears, and he was utterly disoriented. She couldn't help but feel sorry for him—and Marinette tried never to let emotion cloud her performance.

"Around the middle," she said. She was met with little more than confusion. "Grab onto me around the middle."

"L-like... like a hug?" he questioned.

She wondered what the proper response was. Was it better to explain the psychological benefits of close contact, or to empower the gesture as one of sincere emotion?

"It's whatever you need it to be," she had no sooner responded, than he had thrown his arms around her waist and pulled her close. As she dug, he buried his face into the crook of her neck. She could feel his shallow breath on her skin, coming too fast and often—tears mingling with the fabric of her dress. He still trembled as she worked, but she used her slender frame as a pillar of support, and within moments the bullet was safely resting on her tray—the wound sanitized, and a tourniquet fashioned to stop the bleeding.

She breathed a sigh of relief that transformed itself into a chuckle as it escaped. He drew back from her, and watched as she tried to obscure the reaction with a delicate hand to her lips, but he too was caught up in the jubilation of the moment and joined her in a deep, impassioned laughter—the kind that only shows its face when the danger has passed. It was the laughter that rises from the troupes at the end of a battle, and the laughter that passes between friends after a fight. It's the laughter of children when the teacher has left the classroom, and the laughter of runners at the end of a race. It was the laughter of release, as the tension of the situation dissipated into the cool, night air.

When their moment of unprofessionalism had passed, Marinette spoke: "Get some rest, solider. I'll have a look at the rest of your injuries in the morning."

He didn't object, and with some assistance, he was able to lie on his back.

"W-ill…" he stuttered, "Will…." he changed his phrasing, "I-I… I have a request… if… if you have time."

She tittered internally. Of course she had time. She'd be spending the night at this camp, and she had no other patients to attend to. Still, she was pleased that he valued her time enough to ask.

"Will you stay with me until I fall asleep?"

Now this she was taken aback by. It was not an uncommon request by soldiers, certainly, but she hadn't expected anything so bold from this one. Normally, it was a lecherous request, made by old men who craved extended company. This request was so sincere she couldn't help but comply.

She brought over a stool, and took her seat like a guard at first watch.

"Can I…?" he extended his hand. She took it without answer. _Of course._

"Now close your eyes," she whispered, as he acquiesced.

In the dim light of the lanterns, his soft features looked almost as angelic as they had the moment she'd first laid eyes on him—golden and pure, and unclouded by the miseries of bloodshed. She had the urge to stroke his hair, to caress his cheek—to sing him sweet lullabies until her voice mixed with the wind that whispered and gossiped outside of the safety of the tent. She wanted to swaddle him in blankets and hold him close to her heart, but she resisted. It was getting more and more difficult to maintain her professional demeanor around him, she admitted—just as it was getting more and more difficult to keep open her eyes. Her lids felt heavy, and they drooped further with each heavy, laborious blink. Sleep clouded her vision, like soft cotton piling up in her mind. Slumped in her seat, she swayed only slightly as the faint light of the room blurred in and out of consciousness. Soon, her lashes came to rest on her cheeks and ceased to rise. She breathed easily there as the night crept by outside.

The soft light of morning found her still hunched over on her little stool, and he lying neatly beside her—their hands still clasped just as tightly as they had been the night before.


	7. Right in the Jaw

"Right in the jaw," he said, holding up a fist triumphantly. "I'm going to sock ol' Adolph right in the jaw."

The younger boys cooed reverently as they listened to the boast. They'd heard this story before. They'd heard it last month when it'd been invented, and last week when it'd been given new weight by the news of it's creators enlistment. Today, they hoped some other news would follow.

"You're not gonna slug Hitler."

He looked up from his little audience in time to meet her gaze from across the courtyard.

"Yes I am," he said, not leaving his perch atop the picnic table.

"Yeah," one of the boys whined in defense, "Kim said he's gonna do it, and when Kim says he's gonna do something… Kim do it!"

"He's good on his word," another commented.

"Ain't no liar."

"Ain't never lied in his life."

"Well, he did say he was gonna have a date with the generals daughter that one time."

"That weren't a lie, wise guy—she done rejected him."

"Hey," Kim snapped, "Why don't you go play in traffic?"

The boys exchanged long glances of " _Do we have to?"_ before picking themselves up, dusting off their britches, and scampering away across the schoolyard and out of sight.

"What'd you go and say that for?" Kim asked, after they were well out of earshot.

"You're full of it," she snorted, crossing her arms and locking her eyes with his. Somehow they always ended up like this: a mental and physical staring contest—a battle of the wits, tongues, and occasionally fists. It didn't matter that she was barely half his size; the score was always tied, and they were always looking to break it.

"What do you know?" he asked, "You haven't done nothing for the war yet, and it don't seem like you're about to start now. At least I'm doing something."

"What? Joining up?" she asked mockingly, "You won't last a year."

"Jokes on you," he teased, "With me in the ranks, we won't need a year."

"Don't get cocky. I know what they're saying same as you, but they're always wrong. My brother said they said it about the Great War, and Napoleon before that. He said they even said that about the Trojan War way back when, and that lasted a decade. You won't make it more than a year, and I'll bet money on it. You can pay me when you come crawling home, crying."

His face contorted in rage. What did she know anyways? What did her dumb brother know? He'd joined up a month ago, and he wasn't so tough. If anyone was going to come home crying it'd be Jalil—not him. And what gave her the right to talk like that? She was just a dumb girl. She wasn't going to be the one fighting. She was going to stay home and cook, and sew, and complain that there didn't seem to be as good rations as there were last week.

"You be quiet. I don't have time for your gibberish," he snapped. "Why don't you run along and play with your fancy toys and silver spoons and leave the fighting to the real heroes in this country?"

"What, you?" she laughed mockingly, "I'd make a finer solider any day."

"But you won't," he shot back.

"I can't."

"Hogwash. Maybe you can't enlist, but you can still do your part."

"You mean collecting cans and raising money for war bonds?" she smiled sarcastically, "Gee wiz, Mister; I'd like nothing better than to keep doing what I'm already doing."

"That's not what I meant."

"Then what did you mean?" she asked, "You want me to lie about my age and gender to sign up?"

"I just meant there's plenty of jobs for women too. Code talkers, and secretaries and even espionage."

"Now there's a $10 word for you."

"Look," he said, finally hopping off the picnic table, and standing across from her, "it don't matter to me if you're in it or not. I am, and I'm gonna do my duty, so stop messing with me."

"I'll mess with you as long as you keep making it easy," she quipped. "I said you won't make it a year, and I stand by that."

"Do you now?"

"I'd bet money on it, I told you."

"I'll take that bet," he said, cracking his knuckles in anticipation. "I bet my first months salary I'll make it twice what you think. 300 Francs says I'll make it two years easy—if the war happens to last that long."

"And what if we lose before then?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"We won't. I already told you we're going to win."

"But what if we do?"

"If we lose, I'll buy you a diamond ring, and you can keep it for your jewelry box—no strings attached—or sell it off at the pawn shop."

"That's—"

"But if we win, I'll buy you an even bigger diamond, and you'll have to accept it and marry me."

"Why would I marry you?"

"So that every morning I can wake up next to you and say, 'I told you so.'" He looked her dead in the eye, as he set the scene, "Just you and me, ever morning. 'Do you remember that time you told me I'd never sock ol' Adolph in the jaw, and then I decked him solid, square?' 'You remember that time you told me France'd surrender in no time fast, and then we beat those Nazi clowns within an inch of their lives?' 'Remember that time you told me I'd come home crying, and I came back a hero?' 'Remember that?' Every morning. I'm gonna ask you every morning as long as you live."

"I'll take that bet," she sneered, narrowing her eyes in disgust, "because you're not gonna win." She took a step closer to him, until there was less than an inch between. "And, if you're right in all your boasting, I'll even pay for the wedding."

And with that, she turned on her heals and sprinted all the way home, not stopping to look back even once.

He hadn't noticed it before, but the sun had already begun its decent behind the horizon while they had been caught up in their quarrel. The dim twilight left patches of gold strewn across the earthen floor, broken up haphazardly by the long, dark shadows of trees, and other familiar landmarks that now seemed unearthly against the amber sky.

He shoved his hands in his pockets, and made his way to the suburbs. His mother was sure to have dinner ready by now. After all, he was leaving for basic training in the morning, and she'd promised to make his favorite.

That was the last time he'd seen Alix, he recalled, as the transport vehicle jumped and jostled over every rock and dip in the road. The ride back to Vincennes had been far less than pleasant, but he knew it was nothing compared to what he'd likely endure once he arrived back in his hometown.

It had taken a few days to get there—between his mother's aversion to answering the telephone, and the army's refusal to provide personal carriage to the soldier's homes—but eventually he found himself in the familiar suburbs of Paris, standing in front of a familiar house, with a familiar knocker on the front door.

He shifted his weight to his left crutch, and let the right fall against his body as he lifted the heavy, brass handle and dropped it once, twice, three times. He picked up the crutch once again, as he heard a movement from inside. For a moment, he dared to hope. _Was it her?_

The man who opened the door seemed different than the man Kim had known only a few months ago. He had the same blue eyes, and the same scruffy looking moustache as him, but there was something about his expression that made Kim feel that whoever this was, was much older, and much more worn, than the Mr. Kubdel who had congratulated him on his enlistment not so long ago.

"Is Alix home?" Kim asked, "I have something for her."

Mr. Kubdel's eyes only betrayed his sadness for a split second, before he smiled.

"Kim! It's so good to see you!" he said, "I trust you made it out in one piece? Or mostly?" he asked.

"Busted up leg, sir," he said almost apologetically, "They got me pretty bad."

"Of course, of course," he muttered, chastising himself for not noticing the crutches.

"I was on the front lines my first battle. Got hit, and went down hard and fast. But, Alix, sir; is she here?"

"Alix? No." His eyes looked sad again. This time, they held the expression, and did not shake it. "Alix hasn't been home in several months. She left not long after you."

"Left? Where'd she go?" he asked, somehow still baffled by the turn of events.

"What I wouldn't give to know that…" he replied, not making things any clearer. "Is there something else I can get you, my boy? Or is that all? I really wish I could tell you, but she never even said she was leaving until she was gone."

"No," he responded hesitantly, "I guess I'll leave you be then."

"Yes, very good. I suppose that does make sense," Mr. Kubdel muttered, closing the door behind him.

Kim stood there for a long time after it had shut. It's not that he'd expected Alix to be there—he'd already told the nurse she wouldn't be waiting—but something in him had dared to entertain the notion that maybe she might. Maybe she hadn't left yet. Maybe she was visiting. Maybe she'd found something to do that hadn't required her to leave the city. It was an overly optimistic thought—the kind he wasn't previously accustomed to entertaining—and he chided himself for his foolishness.

Still, he chuckled to himself. The 300 Francs felt heavy in his pocket, and the amber sky felt less vibrant than it ever had before, but as he stared out at the shadowy skyline of the city, he wondered if perhaps this had been a blessing. He may have lost the first bet—he may have been sent home before the year was out—but France still had a war to win; and with Alix on the case, he knew they had nothing to fear. Maybe by the time she got home, he'd have enough saved up to buy her that ring he'd promised.


	8. Swing and Twist

All things considered, it was practically a miracle that Marinette woke up as she did—by her own volition, and in her own time. Retrospectively, she could have been jolted from her seat by the rude call of an officer entering the space; perhaps, it could have even been the General himself who found here there. Luckily, though, it was nothing more than the warm light of day that roused her from her slumber.

She took a moment to adjust to the somewhat unfamiliar surroundings, which, though quite similar to her usual abode, felt alien to her in the early morning hours. The first thing she was aware of, even before her vision cleared of sleep, was the awful ache in her back and lower body. The second thing she noticed—before she had time to question exactly why she was presently seated instead of lying down—was a soft pressure round her palm.

With a great blush, she recognized the soldier lying there, and responded by standing abruptly, and knocking back the little stool with a great clatter, which woke the then sleeping person. He blinked in confusion a few times, and then smiled up at her.

"Good morning, ma'am. Did you sleep well?"

In her embarrassment, she'd managed to drop his hand, and now showed no obvious sign of her long stagnation. Perhaps he assumed that she'd retired to her own tent after he'd fallen asleep, and had presently returned to wake him. She hoped this was the case, and answered in turn.

"Yes, and you?"

He chuckled, "Surprisingly well, actually."

"Your injuries didn't wake you, I hope," she commented.

"Only a few times," he smiled, "It was nice to see you there when I did."

Now, she blushed profusely and brought her hands to her cheeks in a vain attempt to cover the reaction. She let out a low groan, and winched as she spoke.

"Please don't tell anyone about that…."

"What?" he asked, genuinely confused.

"I fell asleep on the job," she asserted, stretching the truth just a hair, "If the General found out, I might be placed on probation." This was a lie. Marinette's services were far too valuable to lose over an infraction of this nature. She'd receive a reprimand, certainly, and perhaps a metaphorical slap on the wrist, but she was far more worried about her reputation than she was her job.

"Oh," he replied, nodding his understanding, and his promise.

"Now that you're awake, Mr. Agreste, would you like me to bring you breakfast, or may I check your wounds first?"

"You can check," he answered, "I'm not really hungry yet."

She quickly set to work looking after the two old familiars. She was somewhat alarmed to find that without her instruction otherwise, he had actually left the bandage around his arm all this time. Thankfully, he informed her that—while he hadn't the insight to air it out, as she would have instructed—he did at least have the forethought to change the bandage every day. When she finally removed it, she found little more than a tiny scar—not even enough to sterilize. She calculated that it would quite likely be invisible before the year was out.

The abdomen wound was another matter entirely. The area itself was healing nicely enough—the bruising had nearly vanished, and what had been previously cut, was now scabbed over—from what she could tell, entirely without infection, and not likely in need of any grafting. Still, with the continued presence of burned tissue, and considering the shear breadth and severity of the injury, it was an ugly sight to behold—one which was likely to remain for the rest of his days. Of all the scars that could have possibly marred his features, he was certainly lucky it wasn't somewhere more apparent. However, it did mean a lifetime of awkward explanations each time he was forced to remove his shirt.

"How does it look, nurse?" he asked, apprehensively.

"Well," she said, giving her most professional opinion, "You'll never be a model."

By mid-afternoon, the rest of the regiment had been packed up and moved to their location—or rather a few hundred paces Northeast of it. Alya had taken the initiative to transport Marinette's things for her, and so it was that she was reunited with her belongings, and her own bed, before she even had want of them. She was quite thankful to note that her best friend had not forgotten even a single drawing, and had even managed to include the soldier's simple shrine in her baggage.

The following week passed quickly. Everyone was busy setting up the new base. Supply vans ran in and out of camp constantly, and there was an air of fresh vitality all about. Marinette divided her time between unpacking and setting up the new hospital, and attending to what few patients still remained. Besides Private Agreste, there were only a handful of stragglers still harboring wounds from their first battle. The rest of the patients were a menagerie of common colds, twisted ankles, sprained wrists, broken arms, and an assortment of imagined ailments, created either out of hypochondria, or a simple desire to get out of work.

It was little wonder, then, that Marinette devoted more of her attention to Private Agreste than she did anyone else. The other nurses, too, had taken notice of her focus, and had determined it best to deem that particular solider "Marinette's patient." The only oblivious party was Chloé, who persisted in an occasional attempt at flirting under the thin guise of "help." After what had happened last time, Adrien was not quick to trust the exuberant nurse with anything related to his well being, but he did indulge her in a quick drink of water, or some other comfort, which she could easily provide.

What little time Marinette spent outside the hospital tent was usually reserved for trips to the dining tent, and little more. She rarely ate with the soldiers—instead electing to return to her private quarters with meals. She supposed it was unnecessary, these days, since Rose had elected to start a catering service for the hospital—transporting plates of food back and forth on a rickety cart—but Marinette enjoyed the fresh air, and the brief opportunity to observe the soldier's socializing, even if she was not one to join in their conversations herself.

It was here, whilst waiting her turn, that she spotted him. She looked up just in time to catch a swath of fiery auburn hair disappearing into the crowd.

"Nathanaël!" she cried out, forgetting all sense of etiquette. She raced from her place in line and chased after, but was unable to catch him, or even make him turn, before he was swallowed up by the crowd of soldiers racing to grab a plate. She shoved through them a minute longer, until she realized the vanity of her actions and stopped.

Nathanaël was deceased. Whoever it was she had seen, it had not been him.

She scolded herself for her senselessness, and resumed her place in line—now even further away, due to the onslaught of hungry soldiers extending the wait.

When she finally returned to the tent, it had grown so late, and she had been so famished she had eaten her food on the walk, and now had little more than an empty plate to stack with the rest on Rose's cart before resuming her duties inside the hospital. She was surprised instead, to be greeted by Private Agreste—now out of bed and anxiously waiting for her at the mouth of the tent.

"Some of the soldiers and I are going into town tonight," he informed without hesitation.

Seeing her confusion, he continued. "Nino got wind of a little dance hall offering free drinks for soldiers this weekend, and Ivan knows one of the supply truck drivers. He said we could ride in the back when he picks up his goods tonight so long as we don't mind the cramped space."

She stared at him for a second, wondering why he was telling her all of this.

"A-are you asking permission?" she finally queried.

"I'm asking you to come with me."

The pieces finally clicked in her brain, and she was caught off guard once again.

"Several of the nurses are coming already, Nino says," he explained, "I didn't want you to feel left behind."

"R-right. Of course," she recovered. "Yes, I'd love to come with you," she responded cheerfully, although she was entirely unsure of her decision.

"Great!" he beamed, "We're meeting on the Southeast side of camp, right at the loading zone at 10:00. I've got to change my uniform, but I wanted to make sure you knew before I did."

And with that, he sped out the front of the tent, faster than she'd seen him move all week.

She, in turn, retreated to her own abode in time to find that Alya and Chloé were also attending, as well as Mylène from the quarantine wing, although Sabrina and Juleka had elected to stay behind—Sabrina, because she was afraid of socializing, and because someone needed to attend to things in their absence, and Juleka because she claimed she had greater interest in a member of the kitchen staff than she did in any of the soldiers going, and she had no desire to dance alone.

Marinette felt almost giddy as Alya helped her pick out her cleanest dress—still a part of her uniform, of course, as she had brought no other clothing besides her traveling suit—and apply a bit of rouge. Chloé scoffed at the miniscule dusting of makeup, but Marinette felt like a princess with the pink stain on her cheeks. Before her watch reached ten, Alya hurried everyone out the door, and to the awaiting transport vehicle.

"Lovely to see you again, Ma'am…" Nino said, indicating Marinette, "Alya~" he winked.

"When did you—" Marinette began.

"Shhhhh," Alya hushed, covering Marinette's mouth before she could continue further, "We got to talking while I was taking care of his injuries, but I swear I haven't seen him since."

"Well, if that's all—" But before she could finish, Private Nino approached again.

"You left this last time," he said, handing Alya the small note-pad she kept with her at all times, before departing again to arrange seating.

"'But I haven't seen him since,'" Marinette mimicked teasingly.

"Quiet, you," Alya sulked, but the two burst into quiet giggles despite.

At this point the truck was already nearly full, Chloé sitting triumphantly at the head, like a queen on her throne of hay and boxes, while rows of soldiers huddled together to conserve space. Nino had been quick to ask Alya if she had any interest in sharing the driver's bench, which she had, of course, accepted. All that was missing was Private Agreste.

Presently, he came sprinting up the road, just as the call went out that they were nearly out of space.

"Anyone else better be prepared to squish," Nino called.

Mylène was the first to oblige—hesitantly, of course—but with a bit of prompting, she crawled into the lap of one of the soldiers already seated in the truck bed. Another pair moved closer together, and Adrien was able to find space in the far corner of the vehicle. He held out his hand, and Marinette climbed in after him, turning for a moment, before he pulled her down between his knees and they sat stacked together, as Alya and Nino shut the flap and closed them inside.

The journey there was a long and uncomfortable one, though the spirits of the pilgrims were bright and filled with excitement at the prospect of the evening. At first, Marinette had done her best to sit up and away from Adrien, but as an especially sharp bump had sent her flying backwards into his still-tender wound, she found it better to brace herself against the good side of his body, and lean into his form, arms crossed nervously across her chest. He, in turn, kept both hands firmly planted on the ground, to limit their movement, and the two made a point of neither speaking of, nor non-verbally acknowledging, their unlucky positioning.

When they arrived, the dance was in full swing. The two-floored dancehall was absolutely packed with locals and travelers alike, ready to enjoy an evening of fun and festivities. When they entered, a squeal went up from the crowd. They'd hoped the advertisement would draw in some troops, but aside from a smattering of local veterans and a few obvious fakes, they hadn't had any luck yet. The boys were quickly snatched up, both by young women who rushed them to the dance floor, and by jolly older men who ushered them to the bar for free drinks, ebullient slaps on the back, and "thank yous" for their service. In the hustle of the crowd, even the nurses weren't forgotten. Men came pouring out of the rafters—asking for their hands and ears and hearts, if they should be so lucky. Chloé quickly found herself in a circle of admirers, dropping compliment after compliment upon her pretty blonde hair, her sparkling blue eyes, and other neoteric features. She spent the night snapping between one partner and the next, leaving a trail of suitors in her wake.

Mylène accepted her compliments when they came, for she hadn't quite the prowess that Chloé possessed, and soon headed to the bar in search of more familiar company. Alya, instead, rejected her courtiers swiftly, and marched off towards certain confrontation on the dance floor, where her hapless beau had been snatched up by some classic beauty. Marinette, like Chloé, found herself passed from one partner to the next in an endless stream of twists and dips and turns and twirls, until she was so utterly out of breath she had to physically remove herself from the dance floor. She found solace at the bottom of the stairwell, neatly positioning herself in a small alcove near the restrooms, and leaned against the wall with a hand on her fast-beating heart.

"Come here often?" a familiar voice asked.

She smiled up at him, as he offered her a drink from the bar.

"I hope it's not too much for you," Adrien said earnestly, "The bartender made it for me, so it might be a little strong…."

Marinette scoffed at the implication, but she laughed at it as well. 'Women's drinks' had never interested her. She could hold her liquor as well as any man.

"You haven't been dancing?" she questioned, raising an eyebrow.

"I tried," he replied sheepishly, "The first girl who asked put her hand right here," he motioned to the sore spot, "and I yelped. They were more interested in babying me after that…."

She took a sip. "And you, of all people, aren't used to being babied, are you?"

He looked hurt for a second, and then smiled. "It's different when you do it. You're not nearly as condescending."

"Just doing my job, solider," she grinned, in mock imitation of her usual demeanor.

"But you're not working now, are you?" he asked, half jokingly, and half genuinely wondering what kind of change he could expect from her personality.

"No," she assured, "I'm off the clock, so to speak."

He seemed more thrilled by this than even she would have expected. She doubted the weak drink was having any effect on him, but the atmosphere of the place was truly infectious and she found even she was giddier than usual. To be perfectly frank, this was, quite possibly, the happiest she'd felt since the war began—no, since long before the war had begun. Marinette had almost forgotten what it felt like to feel true glee, and now that it was happening, she wanted to relish every moment.

"Say, Miss—" he began, enthusiastically, and then frowned and furrowed his brow, "You know, in all this time I never thought to ask your name…. Isn't that strange?"

"It's Marinette," she replied, realizing the oddity of their predicament, but seeing no reason to place blame, "Marinette Dupain-Cheng."

"Well, Miss Dupain-Cheng," he said, bowing slightly, "May I have this dance?"

She took his hand with a laugh, and they hurried to the floor. Things had been awkward to start, since Marinette insisted on a less athletic and jerky style of movement, and heavily favored his left side, which had fewer injuries and caused him less pain; but after a few songs, they had found their rhythm, and danced together like old pros drunk on the music and the night, dipping and twirling with the best of them. They spun and jumped and stepped in time as the faces of the other dancers blurred past, appearing more like scenery than other people to the jubilant pair. They were so caught up with one another, they hardly realized that the venue had slowly been clearing of bodies.

When at last they returned to the truck—now even more crowded with the new addition of supplies for the camp—Marinette climbed happily into Adrien's lap, and snuggled in close. He responded by wrapping his arms around her, and holding her tightly as the wagon prattled on down the rocky, uneven roads.

By the time they reached the base, it was nearly dawn, and, comforted by Adrien's warm embrace, Marinette had long since dozed off to sleep—as had any number of the vehicle's other occupants. She was awoken first and foremost by the halting of the van as it came to a sudden stop in the same location they'd departed earlier that night. The clunk of the flap opening, and the invitation to climb down roused her next, but what brought her to full alertness was the distant voice of a solider running towards them, calling out the news at the top of his lungs:

"France has fallen! The government has surrendered to the Nazis! I repeat: France _has fallen!_ "


	9. Nathens and Sparioch

"In contrast," continued the teacher, "Athens was a city of great art and education. Unlike their war-hungry Spartan neighbors, the Athenians did much to influence modern society…"

Nathanaël was only half paying attention to the lesson. Page 319 of the textbook had a photograph of a statue of the goddess Athena, which he was painstakingly copying in his sketchbook. Besides which, he'd heard this story before.

He'd heard it as a kid, when his mother first told it to him, and he'd heard it repeated time and time again throughout childhood—although always with a polar slant to the telling.

"Fearless warriors," his mother said, excitedly, "who so valued their state, it was said, that their mothers kissed their sons goodbye, shouting 'Come back with your shield, or on it!'"

His mother was an author by trade, and anthropologist by profession. Her research on Ancient Greece was her pièce de résistance. She was always bringing home some new fact or figure she'd uncovered, to the great delight of her two boys.

"Nathanaël!" the teacher cried out suddenly, slapping her ruler across his desk, "Are you paying attention to my lesson?"

"I am, ma'am," he responded, though it was not the truth.

"Really?" she asked without asking at all. A cruel, disbelieving smile spread across her face, "Then you won't mind me testing you, I suppose?"

"Certainly, ma'am."

The teacher thought for a brief moment, and then posed the question: "In which state was democracy practiced?" as though it was terribly unlikely that he would guess even so simple a query correctly.

He replied, "You said it was only Athens, ma'am, where Cleisthenes established a direct democracy in 508 B.C., but the truth of the matter is that Sparta adopted range voting in the 700s, and was, arguably, a democracy as well."

Only the teacher was stunned. She hadn't even mentioned Cleisthenes—though she later convinced herself that she had—and she certainly wasn't expecting an answer of that depth and understanding.

The other students, conversely, let out anguished groans at the interruption, and the lack of a better show. Things were always more interesting when Nathanaël didn't know the answer. They enjoyed the way he spluttered and turned red in the face when defeated, and adored the way he would sink lower and lower in his desk chair, or duck his head in shame as he retreated to the dark confines of the principals office when truly humiliated. It was humorous, albeit sadistic. There was entertainment in it. When he knew the answer, there was none of that. The teacher simply returned to her lesson—perceptibly more flustered than before, true, but not to a comedic degree—and he returned to his sketch. They yawned. Perhaps tomorrow would be better.

Nathanaël took pains to ignore the rest of the lesson. The more he listened, the more it upset him. This was not the way his mother told it, and though he had to admit he liked this version better, her tale was all he was reminded of. His mother liked to make things personal. She saw the faces of her neighbors in ancient pottery; she saw the general's horses in automobiles they passed on the streets; she saw the two city-states in her two sons.

"Nath, Nath, Nathens…" his brother had spluttered, before he had quite lost his baby voice. "Nath, Nath, Nathenssssss."

"And what does that make you?" Nathanaël shot back, once he had grown old enough to speak his offense.

"Spa-Spa-Sparioch," Arioch said, accepting his favored delegation.

Perhaps if the stories weren't always so slanted, Nathanaël wouldn't have minded the appellation so much, but his mother was quite biased. She admitted her preference loudly and clearly, and it filled her every tale. She deplored the dreary, pretentious governing body and artistic populace of the Athenian state. She was a woman of action. She lived for passion, bloodshed, victory and defeat. She longed to try her hand with sword and shield, and take up arms against a corporeal enemy with the passion and conviction of the Spartan army—and she hoped her boys would someday do the same.

 _That was probably why she married my father_ , Nathanaël thought. He knew nothing of the man, other than that he was of some authority in the Great War, and that his gloves and sword rested on the mantelpiece. He'd died from an unknown infection, likely caused by his wounds, shortly after Nathanaël's birth, and his mother had rarely spoken of him since. She did little more than comment, from time to time, that he was very brave and well respected by his troops. Still, being older, Arioch claimed to have some memory of him, and was oft to sing his praises in the form of personal victories. He boasted at having been the favorite child of both parents during his father's life, and Nathanaël, remembering nothing, couldn't argue the point.

As the boys had aged, the divergence between their personalities had only grown greater. To his mother's dismay, Nathanaël had grown to be quite a frail young man, always more interested in the arts or his studies than he was in making play. Arioch, in contrast, was enamored by the physical. He was a star athlete during the school year, and nary a summer day was spent indoors. When there wasn't a ballgame in progress, he was always keen to start one. The very second he was of age, he marched down to the recruitment office, and enlisted in the army. He shipped off before he had even finished his studies—and long before even the tiniest hint of war had appeared on the horizon—leaving Nathanaël alone, and yet somehow still inferior.

His mother's praise did not stop just because Arioch was gone. She bragged about him to the woman who lived next door, and to the butcher down the street. She discussed him with the reverend in church, and the editor who published her books. She raved about him to the merchants in town, and the parents at school, and anyone else who would lend her their ear. When there was no one else around to listen, she would take Nathanaël aside and fill him to the brim with the contents of Arioch's latest letter, and what incredible adventures he was having in training.

Nathanaël looked up. The teacher had stopped talking, and the other students were already busy packing their desks. Following their lead, he hurriedly stuffed his belongings into his tote and left the room as quickly and quietly as possible. Today was a big day. It was his birthday, in fact. It was the same birthday that had taken Arioch away from him. It was the day he could officially join the army.

He'd thought long and hard about this decision. In less than four months, the school year would be over, and he'd have his degree. If he enlisted today, he'd ship out within a month and he'd never receive it. If he waited even a day, though, he was sure to hear nothing but grumbling from his mother. It had been her dream to see her sons off to war, and she didn't appear to want to waste so much as a day on something as silly as a certificate. He hadn't even been old enough to sign up and already he'd been feeling her prodding for weeks prior. That, combined with her constant laudation of Arioch had left him in such low spirits, he heavily contemplated running away after every conversation he had with her.

Of course, that begged the question, 'Where was he to go?' The answer was quite simply that he had nowhere to go. He had no income, no friends to take him in, and no marketable skills with which to earn a living. If he truly desired both his mother's praise, and the freedom from her roof, there was only one logical option available to him: he had to enlist. He had to join the army that very day.

The news spread quickly, as local gossip often does. Some were surprised at the decision, while others nodded thoughtfully and proclaimed that it was 'bound to happen.' Most, though, were of the opinion that a tragedy had just occurred.

"It's terribly sad," said the pretty brunette who sat behind him in class, as she mourned the loss of yet another potential beau, "Nathanaël is a lover, not a fighter."

"A shame," said one socialite to another, as they broke bread in the garden, "That boy isn't cut out for war."

"Never seen a worse fit for an occupation," the shoemaker noted, as he handed off a pair of new black spats to the man who lived on the corner.

But his mother only smiled and congratulated him on the conviction, helping him to pack his bags and make the necessary preparations for his departure. For just under a month, he was treated with the same respected an admiration Arioch had received his entire life. He was cooked only his favorite meals, spared the 'indignity' of doing any chores, and heard nothing but praise escape his mothers lips. But, when at last the honeymoon was over and he found himself shipping out early one Saturday morning, his mother adopted her best Spartan disposition, and kissed her son goodbye, shouting "Come back with your shield, or on it!"

Nathanaël made an effort to smile at the remark he knew she'd been waiting so long to utter once again, but he felt no joy in it. As she disappeared out of sight and emptiness welled up in the pit of his stomach, for the first time in weeks, he allowed himself to feel afraid. No matter what naïve optimism his mother possessed, it did not change the reality of what he was about to face—and no matter what antiquated fascination she had with the ways of the ancients, he reminded himself that in this day and age, there were no shields on the battlefield.


	10. La Maison a Quitté

Long before the dawn had truly broken, the General called the entire camp to an assembly—the first of its kind to have taken place since the war began.

It had been several weeks since Marinette had seen General Bourgeois in person, but he looked older than she remembered—more haggard and preoccupied than ever she'd seen him—and his eyes darted constantly from side to side, his brow knit with worry, as though he was expecting the German army to come up over the hills at any moment and decimate the camp.

"It is my... solemn duty," he began, stepping up to the makeshift podium, and speaking into some manner of ancient sound system that had been jerry-rigged for the occasion, "to, ahem, "shed some light" on the rumors that have been floating about camp this morning."

Marinette felt her heart, which had previously been beating in her chest like a moth trapped in a glass jar, calm for only a split second at the word "rumors."

"The truth of the matter" continued General Bourgeois, "Is that these rumors are, unfortunately, true."

Her heart stopped.

"We've known for quite some time that France was in full retreat. The majority of our troops have already fled the country, but as our unit seemed to be making headway, we were instructed not to inform you of the overall situation. Now, it is too late."

Marinette looked around, and saw what he said was true. She'd had an inclination—based on some of the letters she had received from her mother and father—that their apparent progress was the exception to the general flow of the war, but from the looks on the faces of the men around her, she was quite certain she was one of the few who had any idea of the actual state of things.

"We will be evacuating," General Bourgeois informed them, "in two groups. The majority of you will be sent to Narvik to assist the allied forces there. A smaller unit will journey with me to England."

The general sighed, and after a great pause that made everyone uneasy, he spoke with such genuine emotion that Marinette felt each word like a rubber mallet striking at her chest.

"That being said…" and here he paused again, though not so long as the first time, "Although I cannot offer you any severance pay or benefits, and I cannot guarantee your safety and protection… should you choose to desert at this time—should you choose to return to your families and forget you ever had any part in this awful, awful war—we will not follow you… and I, personally, will not blame you."

With these words, he tapped his papers together, and closed his speech— retreating from the podium with even greater solemnity than when he had approached it.

The crowd was dead silent as the watched their fearless General hobble his way off the stage. As he walked, though, murmurs began to disperse through the air around them. _What was going to happen now? Why had this information been kept from them? What would become of their unit?_ The concerns grew louder and louder until they had swelled into a great fervor of voices—pushing, shoving, and shouting—trying to attract the General's attention.

"How will we know where we are being sent?" a soldier cried out, loudly enough to be heard.

"You will receive notice tonight," one of the lieutenants shouted, as he struggled to keep the mass of bodies away from the retreating commander. "Back to your tents everyone! There will be no training until further notice. Everyone: back to your tents!"

That night, Marinette received a letter—little more than a slip of paper, really—detailing that she should be part of the company traveling to England with the General. Of the nurses, only she and Chloé, who had discussed the matter with her father personally and come to the conclusion that she would be safer there, were headed in that direction. Alya, and all of the others were being sent to Narvik along with the troops.

That night, the women of the camp crowded together under one roof, and talked and laughed and cried and hugged one another, as if for the last time. When dawn broke, and the order to pack up the camp came, none of them had slept even a wink, and they took turns napping in the back room to recover their strength.

Before the hospital tent was even fully disassembled, a solider informed Marinette that the English Company—as they were now called—was already in the process of leaving. She sprinted to grab her bags, and departed from her long time co-worker and best friend with little more than a quick squeeze of the hand, before loading into the last of the transport vehicles headed for the coast.

Once inside the carriage, she looked about her for someone she knew, but found not a familiar face in sight. Even Chloé, who was usually far less than the comfort she would have been at that moment, had likely boarded one of the earlier transports.

As the wagon rocked and swayed with the nurse and soldiers inside, Marinette felt a more overwhelming sense of "goodbye" than she had ever known she could feel—more overpowering, even, than when she had uttered those same words to her own parents when she first joined the army. Now, as she stepped out of the vehicle and onto the boat to England, she bid farewell to home, country, and familiarity all at once.

As it turned out, the soldiers of English Company was brought along for the express purpose of providing protection for the General on his journey to England, and Marinette had been brought along for the express purpose of providing medical attention, should the soldiers be tasked with fulfilling their purpose.

Because of the city's occupation, the unit departed from a tiny fishing village just east of the captured port of Dunkirk. They sailed under the cover of darkness, and though the air was thick with tension, the attack, which seemed to weigh heavy on everyone's thoughts, never came.

The boat arrived safely in England, and after a two-day acclimation period, the company was all-but dissolved. In this time, Marinette had not seen another familiar face—although she calmed herself with the reminder that she had not, at any point, viewed more than a third of the company all together, and had not even laid eyes on Chloé Bourgeois, whom she knew to look out for.

It was at this point that Marinette learned the intended fates of her company members. The General—lauded for his tiny victories far away from the front lines—had been called in to testify against Viscount Halifax's still somewhat supported assertion that the Allies should attempt to barter a peace treaty with the Axis forces in the face of unlikely victory. The soldiers, it turns out, had been specially chosen not just for their strength, but for their ability to speak English, and were to be folded into the British military or air force as quickly as possible. Because none of the nurses spoke fluent English, however, Marinette was chosen only for her medical skills, and no plans for her had been made hereafter.

At first she believed that perhaps she would be redirected to Narvik with the rest of her company, but when it became obvious that there were no units headed in that direction, and the army had no intention of providing transportation for a single nurse, Marinette resigned herself to working in one of the hospitals on the British Air Force Base.

It wasn't that the other nurses there were rude to her, or that she was in any way uncomfortable, but without any grasp of the language, things were difficult at best. She soon discovered, much to her relief, that several of the doctors were well acquainted with the Latin names of things, and so she was able to assist them in performing surgeries—albeit with the help of at least one other English-speaking nurse as her aide—and they occasionally acted as her translators, when time permitted.

One advantage of the hospital was that it existed in a permanent building, with multiple floors and an entire wing devoted to the housing of its staff, and was quite well stocked. Marinette took time to acquaint herself with a great number of new chemicals and ethers that her old company had never been able to afford. She tried her best to read the instructions, and where she had questions, she was able to ask the doctors, who usually made quite a show of miming the intended use of the product.

As to her relationship with the rest of her co-workers, moments of genuine affection were few and far between. She was able to convey her needs through a series of gestures and misplaced words which she had tried her hardest to pick up without a teacher, but when it came to dealing with patients Marinette was reduced to subsisting on only her famed nurse's smile and calming presence, without the assistance of any true form of conversation—which had always been the best tool in her arsenal.

To that end, though, the hospital served a slightly altered purpose to the one in which she had previously been employed. By this point in the war, the British had begun a series of bombings in Germany—especially around the Ruhr Area of the country—and what few fighters were able to make the entire the trip and return with injuries were treated at the hospital. Thus, it was that the daily number of patients was much fewer than it had been so close to the battlefield.

Instead, Marinette was usually asked to assist in the sick wing—where ailing soldiers, not yet deployed, were treated for mundane ailments—and though she had been trained in many forms of medicine, she had not been required to deal with illness in quite some time. She considered the work slightly beneath her—skilled as she was with treating injury—but as there was no other to be done, she made the best of it and approached each patient with a polite enthusiasm and intense focus, as though it had been a bullet wound to which she attended, and not a case of the common cold.

It was only at night, when the other nurses laughed and joked in that foreign tongue that so confounded her, and settled one by one into their bunks, that Marinette allowed herself to grieve for her situation. She had made true on her promise to Alya to write her as often as she could, and had even managed to send off a few letters to her parents informing them of her location, but she hadn't received a word in return.

Surrounded as she was by her sleeping co-workers, it was only in those long hours after the day's work had officially ceased and before following morning's had yet begun, that Marinette allowed herself to feel really and truly alone.


	11. Cookie and the Wingman Back at Base

Early one Saturday, only a few months since she had arrived in England, Marinette finally took it upon herself to become acquainted with the rest of the air force base on which her present workplace resided. In truth, she had no idea whether or not this was something she was allowed to do, but as she seemed to be the only soul around who spoke modern French instead of the Queen's English, she trusted any transgressions would likely be overlooked on account of her perceived ignorance.

That being settled, though, Marinette was quick to note that there didn't seem to be anyone about to accuse her of anything in particular. She had risen at the crack of dawn—and on a weekend no less—so the number of bodies currently roaming about the base could be counted on one hand. She'd passed several serious looking chaps who wore the grey jumpsuits of janitors, and bid them good morning. They responded with only a sleepy grunt before resuming their required tasks and paying her no more mind.

After making rounds through several very exciting, florescent-lit hallways filled with shelves filled with boxes filled with who knows what, Marinette finally arrived at her location of interest: the airplane hanger.

The space was large, and open, and felt vaguely agoraphobic when compared to the cramped and narrow hallways of the hospital. It had a yellowish glow caused by the sunlight streaming in through the upper windows and skylights that seemed to make it stand out from the rest of the base, as though this were the place where the action happened, and everything else was little more than an afterthought.

Marinette wound her way between planes and boxes, stepping carefully over electrical wires, and swerving quickly to avoid beams and wings and ladders leftover from the previous nights repairs. As she perused the base, she kept her hands tightly clasped behind her, as though she were browsing a store in which she could never afford a single item, yet knew a simple touch could bring about an army of salespersons, clamoring to secure a purchase.

When she passed under the wing of a B-26 Marauder, she half expected to see such an associate, but recoiled in surprise when she found instead the hunched back of a soldier, working diligently to repair some part of an engine.

"Oh! Excusez-moi—" she began, and then quickly remembered her location. "Excuse me," she corrected.

"You speak French?" The soldier turned to look at her, and then a toothy, familiar grin spread across his face. "Hey Cookie! Fancy meeting you here." He extended his arm for a shake, and then furrowed his brow. "No, hey, that's not right. What was it again? Marta? Mari? Marinette? Marinette, right? I'm just kidding. I'd never forget a name and a face like yours."

Marinette found herself infinitely flustered by the sudden stream of compliments, but accepted the handshake anyways.

"So you're with the RAF now?" he asked, "Well, of course you are. I knew that. Alya's been asking about you in all of her letters, but I didn't know where to find you."

"Alya's been writing to you?" Marinette asked in shock. In all her time on the base, Marinette had not received a single note from anyone, much less her best friend.

"Sure," Nino replied, with some concern. "Haven't you been getting them?"

"Not a word," Marinette responded, relief and anxiety flooding through her simultaneously. Had Alya really been writing to her nuevo beau, and not her best friend? Certainly there must be some other explanation.

"Well, let's see," Nino mused, "We get our mail handed out to us at supper. Anything like that back in Medical?"

"No," she answered, "I've been checking the boxes, but there's been nothing."

"Well, there's your problem, Doll," he chuckled, "They've probably been sending your stuff our way, since you're company. Let me talk to my constituents, and I'll get back to you with the goods," he winked.

"T-thank you!" she stuttered, wondering what allies he might have in the way of mail services, and whether or not he could really deliver.

"Hey, no problem, Sweetheart. Anything for my best-friend's girl."

Marinette floundered. In truth, the news of the camps dissolution had come so suddenly after her evening with Private Agreste, that she wasn't exactly sure on what kind of terms their relationship stood. Still, she felt that a better question to ask him, than the person who was now offering her a favor.

"How is he?" she asked carefully, hoping that Nino's cheery demeanor indicated good news, but fearing that Adrien's tendency towards injury signaled the worst.

"Aces! A real top-notch pilot, but I guess you've been pretty out of the loop." She nodded, and hung on to his every word. "Got him flying around… Well, I don't know if I'm allowed to say this, but who am I kidding? If we can't trust each other, who can we trust? They got him on his way to Berlin. Going to hit the Germs where it hurts. A little bit of payback for all they've been giving us."

Marinette knew what he meant. The ground had been shaking since she'd arrived. Most of the targets had been factories that had been supplying the war effort, but there was news that civilians had been hit. Whether they were errant bombers, or an intentional change in tactic, she didn't know, but they spelled bad news for the rest of the war. An indiscriminate attack on Berlin would only cement the idea that the battlefield should be extended into the private sector.

Still, she articulated none of this, and chose instead to wish him a speedy return—uninjured, dare she pray.

"And what about you?" she asked, politely. "I recall hearing you'd always wanted to be a pilot." In truth, the rumor had been passed to her on the winds that blew through the mess hall, as it was called, as two soldiers debated the correlation between Nino's career ambitions, and his status as the camp's best wingman.

"They've got me on the ground," he smiled, but with a sadness that indicated he wasn't at all pleased with his answer. "Vertigo. I get dizzy up in the air. Can't have someone like that at the controls, I guess…. Though I still say others here got it worse, and they must be over Berlin by now."

"You don't think…" Marinette began, but he cut her off.

"Hey now. No reason to get a long face. I'll find my way to the sky some day. We've got plenty of war left for me yet." He took a long, hard look at her. "Say, Cookie… Why don't you get yourself a doctor's degree so you can declare me fit to fly?"

"You really think it will last that long?"

"I think you're smart," he winked, "I think you really know your stuff, and I think we're in good hands so long as you're here. As to how long the war will last, I don't know, so maybe hurry up with that, ya hear?"

Marinette smiled—wide, and for the first time in months.

"I will."

* * *

That night, a pile of envelopes materialized in Marinette's quarters. Letters from her mother, father, and Alya all came with large chunks of blacked out text, as though the army thought her too delicate to read about the life in Vichy France, or perhaps the lines had been defiled before they had even crossed boarders. She wasn't sure.

Alya spoke about Narvik with such candor that the censorship seemed entirely necessary. She described the movements of the camp in such detail that Marinette was quite sure one of her letters passing into enemy hands would mean the undoing of the entire Allied Forces. Still, she laughed at her friend's observations, and felt a twang of guilt when it became obvious to Alya that despite reading each and every one of Marinette's posts, her letters weren't being received.

Lastly, at the bottom of the stack, were a collection of small, colorful envelopes without an address. It seemed as though—despite traveling the same route, and existing in the same base—no one in the British Company knew the location of the little nurse who had accompanied them from East of Dunkirk. Thus, the letters from Private Agreste had sat unaddressed for as long as they had been in existence.

At first, she poured over each one with the careful attention one might give to a Shakespearian sonnet, checking each line for rhyme and meter and secret meaning, but soon discovered that the letters were little more than ordinary. Some of them contained hints of carefully abated passion, but so much was crossed out, crossed through, or otherwise unsaid that it was hard to tell exactly what was meant by the rest. Many seemed to allude to another set of correspondences, which most certainly had never been delivered. She wondered if those letters might get closer to the heart of the matter, but as she lacked any definite proof, she resolved to ask him about it in person, should they ever chance to meet again.


	12. September 7th, 1940

As the leaves changed from summer's optimistic green to the vibrant red of autumn, so too changed the function of the hospital in which she made her home. Where before Marinette had been mostly tasked with attending to the sick wing, an influx of bombings around RAF bases had meant a steady supply of injured soldiers clamoring for her care and attention.

She chastised herself for her eagerness, of course, but after months of changing wet rags and bedpans, the excitement of putting her skills into practice once more was enough to incite an unreasonably cheery demeanor in the once timid nurse.

After her discussion with Private Lahiffe, as she had later learned he was called, Marinette's work had steadily increased. She spent her days setting bones and removing shrapnel from wounds as horrific as any of those she'd seen on the battlefield. At night, the earth quavered and shook as bombs fell both near, and far away. It was more than common to be aroused from her slumber by the call of the head nurse, asking for volunteers to continue their duties well into the early morning hours. As exhausting as it was, Marinette did her job with the unwavering professionalism of a nurse who had already spent time on the battlefield. Despite the painful nature of their cries, the agony of soldiers was nothing new to her.

All of that changed on the seventh of September.

Marinette awoke to a trembling more terrible than any that she'd ever known. For hours already, the booming blasts and explosions both near and far refused to cease, but now that the world had quieted, she could hear a new influx of sounds coming from the hospital itself. She considered waiting for the head nurse's orders to assist, but could not lie still long enough to hear them. Without a second thought, Marinette sprang from her bed and made her way upstairs.

The base was in chaos. An airplane hanger on the far side had been hit, and a small fleet destroyed. Smaller bombs had hit other parts of the base, and the smell of smoke and ash was heavy and choking. Soldiers, nurses, and janitorial staff alike rushed about frantically, trying to put out the fires, and to find survivors among the rubble.

Even as the moon shone brightly in the sky, hoards of bodies streamed into the hospital—more people than she had ever seen in a single attack, and without the familiar uniforms of the army or air force. Every cot was filled before day had even hinted at its arrival. Every wing was packed, every doctor on his feet, every nurse rushing to and fro. It was like nothing the base had ever experienced before.

However, what made that night different was not just the proximity of the physical destruction. It was not just the quantity of patients, or the severity of their wounds. It was not even the intensity of the shaking, which seemed so violent that the earth itself might split open wide and reveal the flames of hell beneath. No. What made tonight different was that the patients which were now entering the hospital en mass were not soldiers, but civilians.

Later, Marinette would learn what had happened. Later, Marinette would connect the dots between the errant German bombers and the attack on Berlin she'd discussed with Private Lahiffe. Later, she would learn of the all-consuming anger of the Füher, and his promise that "If they declare that they will attack our cities on a large scale, we will erase theirs!" Later, Marinette would look back on the almost juvenile game of retaliation being played by political leaders of the highest rank, and wonder if it weren't all avoidable. Later, she would have time and composure to consider these sorts of thoughts, but now there was only screams.

"My mama! My mama!" a child shrieked, somehow managing to cut through the deafening noise of the crowd. She sat upright in a cot far too large for her, in a room that had clearly been collecting patients since long before Marinette awoke.

"Be calm, please," she began haltingly, what little English she had acquired now all but failing her in the heat of the moment. It didn't help that she hadn't seen, so much as worked with a child since before the war began, and the girl's shrill voice made translation even more difficult than usual. From what she could tell, the child was looking for her mother.

"How does… how does your mother appear?" she managed, only to be met with a flood of sobs and an incoherent jumble of words that didn't, in any way, seem to resemble a personal description. It was just as she was about to ask again—to take the child's hand in hers and try her best to calm her and perhaps to acquire some shred of information that might help her locate the mother—that she noticed the abnormality which had necessitated her hospitalization in the first place.

Despite showing no indication of physical pain, the child's arm hung limp by her side, her fingers and wrist twisted at unnatural angles. A series of quickly constructed tourniquets wound their way around what Marinette could only assume was irreversible damage.

"Marinette!"

The doctor's voice snapped her out of her shocked analysis.

"Marinette, I need you with me in the surgery wing," the doctor commanded just calmly enough not to upset the patients, but with a sense of urgency she hadn't heard before.

"But, her mother… her arm…" Marinette began, already following him out of the room. The second they were beyond earshot of the patients, the doctor stopped, and explained.

"The arm is in stable condition for tonight. It's been crushed, but the bleeding stopped shortly after she arrived. She's lucky there were other people working in the newsroom at this late an hour. She was brought in by a journalist. Her mother, though…"

"Is she-?" Marinette couldn't bear to ask.

"We don't know," the doctor replied, solemnly. "The building came down on top of them. We just don't know."

Before Marinette could stop herself, she rushed back into the room, and hugged the child tightly, as though trying to physically transfer her own strength of will into the girl's tiny body, all the while being careful to avoid causing her any pain.

"We will keep you safe," she whispered, before immediately following the doctor to the surgical wing.

She wasn't sure if it was shock or relief or simply the eye of the hurricane, but as she walked away, Marinette dared to believe that the child's screams had temporarily quelled.

The rest of the night was spent deeply involved in emergency surgery after surgery, until Marinette was so tired she lacked the ability to stand, much less create precise incisions. When she could no longer keep on her feet, Marinette was relieved by another, equally skilled nurse, who allowed her to nap in the corner of the theater, until the sun finally rose and Marinette once again found herself attending to her duties.

On the battlefield, the number of injuries had always been low in her regiment. There were always enough nurses to treat the men, and as much as she never believed they were suited to endure the tortures that had befallen them, they seemed to take comfort in the fact that they had signed up for them. Today, there was no such alleviation. Her patients had not enlisted themselves in any army. They had not pledged themselves to any cause. Their homes were not supposed to have become a battlefield. There was no glory in injury, no victory in sacrifice. These people were terrified, and Marinette couldn't blame them one bit.

Nor, unfortunately, did she have the faculties to comfort them. Despite attempting to pump out every fiber of tranquilizing charisma she had once been so certain she possessed, Marinette could do nothing to ease her charges fears but give them space and hope that things would settle down soon.

She flitted about from wing to wing, patient to patient, doctor to doctor, and surgery to surgery, doing everything in her power to make herself useful until at last what had seemed like an endless flow of bodies finally ebbed, and the hospital was able to begin releasing those with only minor injuries.

It was at this point, that Marinette was able to once again return to the child about whom her thoughts had never wavered for more than a minute at a time.

She found her exactly where she had left her, still alone in a cot that was far too large for her diminutive form, but this time completely calm. Her arm, if possible, looked worse than before, but was still attached. She knew that was not likely to remain the case, but had no intention of mentioning it until a decision was reached.

"How do you feel?" she began, as she had been trained to do.

"I don't feel anything. Where's my mama?" the child replied, matter-of-factly. She hoped this was a symptom of excellent painkillers, and not a side effect of trauma.

"We… do not know…" Marinette admitted before she could think of a better answer. "I am Marinette. Do you have a name?"

"… no…" the child muttered.

"No?"  
"Manon," she muttered again, and then asked clearly, "Why can't I see my mama?"

"We do not know where it is that—" Marinette began, but Manon cut her off.

"Are they going to put my arm back?"

"Excuse me?" she blinked.

"I can't feel my arm. I think I lost it in the rubble. Can the doctors put it back on?" Manon asked drowsily, with far less concern than one might expect in her situation.

Marinette was taken aback by the question. Her first instinct was to do as she'd been taught and assuage the girl with pretty words and talk of hope, but the question had been asked with such earnestness that she felt candor her only option.

"We… we will try, Manon, but it is not likely that we can."

The child blinked slowly, sleep clouding her vision, but offered no real acknowledgment. Marinette took it as her cue to leave, kissing her gently on the forehead and carefully tucking her in.

When she was almost out of the room, she heard a tiny voice peep, "Marinette?"

"Yes, Manon?"

"It's okay if you can't do it, Marinette. My mama says the important thing is that you tried." She yawned deeply and nestled into her pillow. "That's what my mama says…" and she was out like a light.


	13. Wie schön Sie sind, Herr Göring!

Before the child had woken from her mid-day slumber, a decision had been reached as to the fate of her arm, and it was not one about which Marinette felt comfortable.

The doctors had very quickly deemed amputation to be the most reasonable pathway, and had sent the girl to the proper team almost immediately upon arriving at the conclusion.

Marinette did not think the decision itself was necessarily the wrong one given the present circumstances—after all, the child couldn't feel the arm, couldn't move the arm, and already had a sickly yellow pooling at the end of her fingertips which could only mean that blood wasn't circulating either—but she was perturbed by the fact that she would not be allowed to assist.

Although most of the doctors at the base were more than willing to take her on as an aide for her skills alone, there were those who refused to work with a nurse whose linguistic abilities were not up to par. In the case of an amputation—and one involving a child no less—Marinette had been instructed to stay away.

She tried her best to bide her time. She knew, of course, that such a surgery would not be completed quickly, but an infinite number of possible complications meant that the wait was agonizing. She roamed from room to room, theatre to theatre, hoping to find something to take her mind off of her worries. She even opted out of her breaks and lunches after discovering that her idle mind contained flashes of only the absolute worst outcomes that could possibly befall such an undeserving recipient.

When, shortly before dinnertime, she heard her named being called frantically from the next room, her heart jumped into her throat and threatened to escape out her mouth. She dashed over, fearing the absolute worst, only to be met with a trio of truly frazzled nurses, who seemed to be too exasperated to be bringing news of the child's surgery.

"She won't stop speaking French!" the nurse cried, "We can't understand a word she's saying!"

"Won't you please talk to her?" asked another.

"Get her to calm down!" griped a third.

It took Marinette only a second to assess the situation. Inside of the room was a small, ill-mannered woman—or perhaps only a girl—no older than she, with mousey-brown hair that was more a mess than even the most overworked nurses and factory women would have thought proper to keep. She lay on a cot in the middle of the room, covered head to toe in all manner of injuries—some still only half-bandaged—and screamed and beat her mattress in a self-flagellating fury. The other patients cowered in fear of her, although it was obvious from her flailing that she was unable to rise up and attack them.

"Please calm down!" Marinette cried out as she entered the room.

Perhaps it was the sudden loud noise, or perhaps it was the fact that she had found another body speaking her native tongue, but the thrashing stopped suddenly, and the girl blinked at her in wide-eyed confusion, as though she had only just realized what a racket she was making.

"Now," Marinette continued calmly, as though she were hoping to impress upon the other that she was quite certain she was speaking to a sane individual, when in reality she had no idea if that was the case, "can you tell me what's wrong?"

"We're at war, dimwit," the girl spat.

Marinette was taken aback by this response, but she pressed on: "I… was hoping you could tell me about your injuries."

"Gee, sure, ma'am. I'd love to!" the girl smiled sarcastically, "This one here is from where they beat me. And this one is where I got slapped across the face. Like the blood? It's from the officer's stupid wedding ring—the cheating bastard. Oh! And this one here's from his boots when he was trying to crush my lungs. You ever had a punctured lung?"

Marinette couldn't say that she had. The girl kept going.

"I've got scratches from the forest, blisters from my shoes, bruises from being dumped in a trash-bin, a black eye and bleeding lip, and this lovely little lady right here."

The girl lifted up the tattered edge of her shirt to reveal a bullet wound that covered more than half her abdomen, nearly a week old and completely untreated.

"We need to take a look at that," Marinette tried to say calmly, but the panic of seeing such a large and grotesque wound on such a tiny person—especially one who seemed to care so little—threatened to creep into her voice with every syllable.

"What's the point?" the girl asked, her angry sarcasm melting into a defeated tone. "I'm no good to anybody now. Never was."

"I'm certain that's not—" Marinette began.

"Look around!" the girl cried, "I could have prevented this! I could have prevented all of this!"

"There's no way you could have—"

Although it had been many months since she'd had the opportunity to practice her skills, it seemed that Marinette's presence alone was enough to induce candor in even the most guarded individuals.

"I could've and I should've," the girl said with an air of finality, but she continued anyways. "See, I was a spy for the—"

"Should you really be saying that so loudly?" Marinette asked in a whisper, as though the walls had ears.

"They don't understand a word we're saying," the girl almost laughed, "Dumb Brits. Only speak English. Est-ce que tu me comprends?" she shouted at a terrified looking woman who showed absolutely no sign of understanding.

"At least let me examine your cuts," Marinette muttered as the girl continued with her story.

"I was a spy, see. For the French first, and then the British when we damn near lost it all, but pretending I was working for the Germans. I spent near eight months working for the bloody Nazis. Bringin' em tea. Pretendin' I respect 'em. 'Ah, Herr Goebbels, möchten Sie etwas Tee?' "Wie schön Sie sind, Herr Göring!" Bastards."

As the girl engaged more and more passionately in her narrative, Marinette had the opportunity to examine more of her wounds. She motioned to one of the other nurses, who was still hovering in the doorway to bring some antiseptic and bandages and got to work on the tiny, stinging cuts on her legs and arms.

"I heard everything. Every meeting, every conversation, every plan. They thought I was a regular German citizen. Sometimes I'm glad my father was so insistent we learn to speak it right, because I wouldn'ta lasted a day if they knew I was the 'enemy.'"

She paused and chuckled… "Well… they sure found out alright. Stupid."

The other nurse had returned with the requested supplies, plus a small pair of tweezers, and Marinette had begun the arduous effort of cleaning every individual wound on the girl's body.

"I heard about the errant bombers back in August. I knew they were errant, but by the time I'd managed to phone base, they'd already sent retaliation to Berlin. I knew I could have called earlier, but I was scared of bein' caught. Scared in September too, but I had to risk it. I knew where the planes were headed. I knew WHEN the planes were headed."

Marinette tried not to look it, but she was absolutely enthralled by the girl's story. She almost hoped it was true, although it was just as likely that her patient was absolutely loony and she was audience to little more than a delusion. Still, her effortless German and knowledge of specific occurrences gave credence to her tale.

"I thought maybe I could sneak into the marshal's office late past midnight and use his private radio insteada meeting up with my usual contact. Only… he wasn't sleepin' too well that night, and he caught me speakin' French into the microphone."

"So he did this to you?" Marinette asked.

"All 'cept what the branches added," she shrugged, "Say, you done pretty good on those scratches. Why didn't I notice you doin' that?"

"A nurse's touch, I suppose," Marinette replied nonchalantly. In truth, recounting her tale seemed to be acting as its own sort of anesthetic for the girl, who hadn't once noticed the stinging antiseptic solution which had touched her open wounds no less than a dozen times already.

"Right," she continued, "and I got a high paint tolerance. Always have. If I didn't, we probably wouldn't be talking. You ever have a broken rib? No, I asked that already…. You ever play dead after someone shoots you?"

Marinette couldn't say she'd done this either.

"Could I take a look at that?" she asked instead.

"What do you care what I give you permission to do?" she griped, but in-genuinely enough that Marinette took it as consent. "You already patched up the little stuff I told you not to. Why don't we just fix everything? Gimme a new set of organs while you're at it. I'm sure you got plenty layin' around these days."

Obviously, she was used to the dark sarcasm and gallows humor that the girl seemed to be using to cope, but it was true that the hospital had lost its fair share of patients this morning, and there were undoubtedly many more innocent bodies in the streets and morgues that had not made it to their doors.

"Anyways… The Marshall—after he's pretty sure I'm dead—has his officer thugs toss me in the dumpster, like I'm human garbage. Probably didn't want his fellow assholes to know he'd personally hired a spy to be his damn maid. I wait until it's quiet and then work my way outa the bag and try to meet up with my contact, but he's nowhere to be found. Maybe he split. Maybe his passport went through and he moved outa this hell hole of a continent. Maybe the Nazis found him first. I don't know. Either way, I'd lost my damn contact, and I couldn't just use any ol' radio."

"So what did you do?" Marinette asked, genuinely curious. She'd now fully accepted the story as being true.

"I walked, of course."

"But… the channel-"

"I walked and hitched rides, and then I took a boat. Stowed away on a cargo ship, thank goodness, and ended up arriving while the bombs were falling. I walked all the way from Berlin, and the sky was already on fire."

"You did everything you could."

"I could have waited, like a goddamn intelligent person, until I'd got a hold of a secure line. I coulda found a radio instead of tryin' to get to headquarters myself. I coulda called in back in August. Maybe I'da died then, but if Churchill hadn'ta sent those stupid planes to Berlin, maybe we coulda avoided this whole mess."

Marinette gulped. She wasn't sure, but she would bet her salary that those were the very planes she'd discussed with Private Lahiffe—one of which, she was quite certain, contained the soldier who continued to consume her thoughts even to this day, Private Agreste.

Still, Private Agreste was not at fault for this. This girl was not at fault for this. Even the politicians and generals who had ordered the attack couldn't have expected this level of retaliation for what she assumed had been a fairly small number of bombers. Destruction aside, the whole thing just felt so inevitable. So childish. So… stupid, as the girl had said.

"Sometimes things just… happen," Marinette said in a way that was meant to be comforting, but felt more foreboding than anything else.

"It's just wretched. All over a steaming pile of crap... And now I've blown my cover at the Reichstag, so I can't even work there again. If Kim gets a punch in on ol' Adolph, I won't be around to see it."

Marinette let the comment pass. It was common to hear talk of personally assaulting the Füher, but something about the way the girl said it felt familiar. Perhaps Kim was a fellow spy. She wasn't sure.

"Let's talk about your wound."

"What's to talk about?" the girl asked.

"First of all, the bad news. The bullet's still in there, and I don't think it makes sense to take it out at this point. You said you got shot several days ago, right?"

"Yeah. I'm only here today because someone shoved me too hard in the panic. Made me black out, and next thing I know I'm in a damn hospital bed."

Marinette continued: "The good news, though, is that it's healing cleanly. You'll always have a scar, but you can cover it easily with clothes and it shouldn't cause you any pain. Everything on your arms and legs should heal too."

"Gee, thanks ma'am. I lost my job, but at least I'll always have my looks," she replied mockingly.

"Perhaps you could enlist, or work as a nurse?"

"Like you? No thank you," the girl snorted, "Not that I don't appreciate what you're doing, but I don't take orders so good. Thought about joinin' the army once I realized I could, but I wouldn'ta made it through training. Too spirited, my dad says. Too independent, I say. I think Kim liked to call me a brat for it, but he's dumb as a box of rocks anyways."

"Can I ask what your name is?" Marinette asked, suddenly realizing she'd never asked.

"It's Alix, ma'am. Alix Kubdell."

"You're joking," Marinette gawked.

"Yeah, that's the kinda thing I'd joke about," Alix said, wrinkling up her nose.

"I served with your brother back in France. Jalil, right?"

"No kidding?" This time it was Alix's turn to be shocked. "It's the smallest world, I swear. How's the idiot doing?"

"I'm not sure…" Marinette confessed, "I know his unit is in Narvik. My friend Alya sends me letters, and she says things are going well. I can give you the address if you want to write to him."

"Damn, maybe I'll go to Narvik. I bet they don't know me in… Sweden?"

"Norway."

"Nah, can't do Norway. Too cold. I'll find somethin' south-side to do once I'm all healed up. Italy, maybe. I really screwed this one up, but we still have a war to win. I've got money on it."

She gave a sudden start, as though she'd remembered something important.

"Actually, I've got money against it… but some bets you just gotta lose."


End file.
